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MEMOIRS 



JOHN HORXE TOOKEr 



TOGETHER WITH HIS VALUABLE 



SPEECHES AND WRITINGS: 



ALSO, CONTAINING 



PROOFS IDENTIFYING HIM 



AUTHOR OF THE CELEBRATED 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



Br JOHN A. GRAHAM, L.L.D. 



Justitiae generisque humani advocatupr 



NBW-1TOB.2C: 

Printed by A. GoulJ & L. Jacobus, Essex-strreet, 
FOR STEPHEN GOULD, 39, NASSAU-STREET; 

And sold by all the Principal Bookseller*. 

1828. 



-i ■. 



HONORABLE 

AMBROSE SPENCER, 

LATE 

CHIEF JUSTICE 

OF THE 

STATE OF NEW- YORK. 

My dear Sh\ 

To you, whose friendship has been 
the pride of my life — whom neither ab- 
sence, distance, nor the revolution of fifty 
years, has estranged from me — to you, 
whom prosperity never exalted, and who 
never withheld the consideration which 



IV 



true friendship pajs to friendship, in every 
situation of life — to you, 

I DEDICATE THIS ESSAY. 

Do me the honor of giving it a place in 
some corner of your library, that when I 
shall have " shuffled off this mortal coil," 
this volume may sometimes catch your 
eye, and bring to your recollection, the 
friend, who deeply felt, and often express- 
ed, so much respect and esteem, for your 
many virtues — and, admiration for your 
profound talents. 

JOHN ANDREW GRAHAM. 

New- Yoi'k, ) 
May 1st, 1828. $ 



PREFACE. 

The following pages are devoted to a subject 
which has long baffled talents and research, 
and to which, at this late hour, scarcely any 
thing short of demonstration, can be supposed 
to impart a lively interest. While the compo- 
sitions of Junius have furnished a model of 
style, as bold and brilliant as it is classical, 
the Author has eluded, discovery, and to this 
moment, as if disdaining applause, the motto 
emblazoned on the escutcheon of his fame, an- 
plies, " Stat nominis umbra." This, it must 
be admitted, is an appalling circumstance, 
not only checking ambition,, but assailing the 
inquirer at the entrance; like some ancient 
sepulchral inscription, at once rebuking the 
curiosity of the profane intruder, and sternly 
prohibiting his further advance. 



VI PREFACE. 



Knowing, however, that the avenues to the tem- 
ple of truth are ever open, and that its votaries 
arc not to be deterred from fair and manly 
discussion, the Author of the following Essay 
has ventured upon a disclosure of facts and 
circumstances, ichich will not suffer himself, at 
least, to doubt as to the identity of Junius. 
He had the honor of the acquaintance of John 
Horne Tooke ; and from the opportunities 
which this afforded, aided by other circum- 
stances, he has been enabled to furnish facts 
hitherto unknown ; and to present others in a 
light so new, as to ■ induce a probability that 
Tooke and Junius are the same. Whether he 
has happily succeeded in forcing the belief 
ichich he seeks to establish, and thus securing 
to the memory of his departed friend, the 
immortality which shrouds the name of Junius, 
public, opinion will decide. To this tribunal 
he has appealed, and his submission to it will 
be as voluntary as it must be imperative. He 
will not conceal, however, the pleasure it woidd 
give him to be the humble instrument of restor- 



PREFACE. VII 

ing to the rightful owner, honors of so tran- 
scendent a character. John Horne Tooke, 
now that the clouds of political contention 
have passed away, stands clarum et venerabile 
no men. His genius was transcendent — his 
talents of the first order — his struggles for 
liberty sincere — his privations and sufferings 
great — and his patriotism undoubted. 

It must not be understood that the Author 
claims the originality of the suggestion that 
Tooke is Junius ; of the constellation of emi- 
nent literary characters of that age, numbers 
hare been selected to that honor, by literary 
curiosity or impertinence, and among others 
John Horne Tooke. He hopes, however, with- 
out subjecting himself to the imputation of 
vanity, he may be allowed the merit of having 
contributed to change mere suspicion into en- 
during and unalterable belief. He seeks, by 
his humble labors, not to weave the wreath, but 
merely to bind it on, having first ascertained 
the brows destined to wear it. If he fails of 



VIII PREFACE. 

• 

this, he will at least have the satisfaction of 
knowing his motives were pure, and of having, 
while employed in this way, scattered many 
agreeable associations along the path of a life 
rapidly descending into the vale. 

The Author begs leave to add, that he has 
consulted, and freely drawn from every pub- 
lication respecting Junius, to which he has 
had access, and takes this opportunity, in con- 
clusion, of acknowledging the kindness of 
many of his literary friends, particularly Mr. 
S. F. Wilson, and of assuring them that his 
gratitude, though not so widely circulated, 
will be as lasting as the name of Junius. 



CHAPTER L 

The publication of the Letters of Junius forms 
a singular epoch in the literary history of the last 
century. They are the first and most perfect speci- 
mens of that kind of political writing, which has since 
so much abounded in the public prints, both of this 
country and of England ; and like most originals, they 
have outlived all their imitators and copyists. Ad- 
dressed directly to men high in office, and enjoying 
the confidence of the sovereign, they spoke in terms 
of such haughty superiority — were so acrimonious in 
their language — so vehement in accusation — and so 
fierce in invective, that they excited a most extraordi- 
nary degree of curiosity and wonder. All the engines 
of authority were put in motion, aided by the violence 
of party spirit, enflamed by personal resentment, to 
discover the audacious writer, who addressed in terms 
of such unmeasured indignation, the highest and most 
powerful men in the kingdom — and who spared not 

% 



10 MEMOIRS OF 

in his sweeping reproaches, even the character and 
conduct of the king. The excitements to which this 
state of things led, have passed away with the per- 
sonages and events by which they were raised ; these 
letters are, however, saved from the common lot of 
oblivion, and are still read with admiration and curi- 
osity. This is owing partly to the mystery in which 
the writer shrouded himself, and which he succeeded 
in preserving, amid all the efforts which were then 
made and which have been continued for half a cen- 
tury, to discover and identify him ; but mostly to the 
intrinsic merits of their style, and their wonderful 
power of argument and expression. As models of 
composition, they have been already ranked with the 
Classics of England. No other work can be produc- 
ed in which the same purity of diction is so uniformly 
sustained in the midst of such vehemence of passion. 
The strongest ideas of reproach which the mind con- 
ceives are expressed in the strongest terms which 
words can supply ; and the author, " even in the 
tempest and whirlwind of his passion," employs the 
most forcible and polished phrases and illustrations — 
as though the loftiness of his indignation could conde- 
scend to nothing below the noblest powers of lan- 
guage. So generally has this been acknowledged, 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 11 

that many of the condensed expressions of thought, 
and beautiful illustrations with which they abound, 
have been quoted so frequently as to become the 
common property of literature, " familiar in our 
mouths as household words." 

To a work of such high character and acknowledg- 
ed excellence, it is not extraordinary that many claims 
of authorship should have been advanced. During 
the fifty years which have now elapsed, since the 
termination of the letters, and their publication in the 
form of a volume, many circumstances of apparent 
coincidence have been brought to light, each of which 
in its turn, has been eagerly seized upon by the friends 
of some eminent person, as affording evidence of his 
claim to the title of Junius, and made the foundation 
of new and different theor}\ One of the most singu- 
lar of these hypothesis, was the attempt to claim the 
authorship for the Duke of Portland, for no other 
reason than that Junius wrote against the claim of 
Sir James Lowther, to the Duke's property of Ingle- 
wood Forest, in Cumberland. 

Many others were advanced with as little claim to 
probability, and in this manner, men of the most op- 



12 MEMOIRS OT 

posite professions and situations in life, and of entirely 
different and discordant political principles, have been 
at divers times set forth to the world by some inju- 
dicious admirer, as the true Junius. But to each and 
all of these, some insuperable objection has been, upon 
closer inquiry, invariably found ; and to this day the 
authorship of Junius remains a problem in literature, 
defying the solution of the most ingenious. We may 
approach the result, but it seems now settled that a 
complete and perfect body of proof cannot now be 
attained. 

It was at first naturally imagined, that no man 
possessing the common passions of our nature, could 
persist in concealing himself, to avoid the admiration 
of his fellow-men. It was considered not only a 
phenomenon in literature, but an anomaly in human 
action, that one could not only refrain from avowing 
himself, to receive in his life-time the laurels with 
which the world stood ready to crown him, but should 
die and leave no trace by which his work could be 
identified for him. But as one by one, all those for 
whom it had been claimed with any show of proba- 
bility, died without making the disclosure, and no 
discoveries among their writings, or from their port- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 13 

folios, authorised a posthumous claim for them, all 
expectation of a direct avowal has ceased. 

It is then only from circumstantial proof, from a 
comparison of the style, manner, expressions and 
political principles of the Letters of Junius, with the 
known character, and avowed writings of some dis- 
tinguished personage, that we can approximate to the 
truth. If these are found to coincide in every respect, 
a case of strong probability will be made out, and 
if in addition, they are aided by unguarded expres- 
sions in confidential conversation on the very sub- 
ject, almost avowing the work, the proof will be 
further strengthened, and the probability will approach 
to demonstration. 

It will be the object of this essay to show in whose 
favor these circumstances exist most decidedly, and 
to explain the reasonings and inferences which have 
induced the belief that the writer of these celebrated 
letters was no other than John Horne Tooke. 
• 

Should the questions be asked why this discussion 
is commenced at so late a period, and why it is under- 
taken bv an individual so far from the theatre of 



14 MEMOIRS OF 

action, and seemingly unconnected with the events, 
the answers will be explicit. To the first interroga- 
tion, the reply is brief and simple. The literary 
world has a powerful interest in the just distribution 
of the honors of literature. The claims of the 
rightful owner can never grow obsolete, because truth 
and justice are eternal. That the successful author 
shuns the rewards which are prepared for him, is not 
conclusive against inquiry. False claims will abound 
where the ownership of the estate is doubtful, and it 
is for the general interest of literature that the title 
should be quieted. When the facts, which are relied 
on, are fairly before the public, we have no fears but 
that their verdict will be just. 

In order to explain the circumstances upon which 1 
conceived the idea that John Horne Tooke was the 
author of the Letters of Junius, even before I exam- 
ined the evidence afforded by the work itself, it will 
be necessary to recount briefly the origin and occasion 
of my acquaintance and connexion with him. In the 
year 1794, I was sent on a mission to England, by 
the Episcopal Convention of the State of Vermont, 
upon ecclesiastical affairs, connected with the Courts 
of Canterbury and York, and " the venerable society 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 15 

for propagating the gospel in foreign parts." The 
nature of my duties, as the accredited agent of so 
highly respectable a body, brought me at once into 
contact with most of the great and learned men of 
England, and gave me the means of the society of all, 
had I so pleased. It is but natural to suppose, that 
such opportunities of intercourse as I enjoyed, were 
eagerly improved by one whose habits and pursuits 
were in search of knowledge, and whose ambition it 
has always been to mingle with the good and great. 
It may not be considered superfluous to add, that I 
had the honor of being recognized as a kinsman, and 
hospitably entertained by one of the most noble and 
distinguished personages in Great Britain. 

Among the eminent men, whose society I had the 
gratification of enjoying, none stood higher in my 
estimation, or in that of the public, than Mr. ToOKE, 
and his intercourse I industriously cultivated. In the 
year 1796, two years after my first visiting London, I 
became a resident in the City of Westminster. It is 
in the memory of all conversant with the history of 
British politics, that in the summer of that year, a 
powerful effort was made at the general election to 
secure a preponderance of the Whig party in the 



16 MEMOIRS OF 

ensuing parliament. Mr. Tooke was a candidate for 
the representation of Westminster, and I, if not an 
efficient, was an active and zealous supporter of his 
interest. As an American I could not feel lukewarm 
in the cause of one of the earliest champions of Ame- 
rica — one who had fearlessly stood forth the advocate 
of my countrymen in the commencement of their 
eventful struggle, and had suffered fine and imprison- 
ment in their behalf. As a lover of justice, I could 
not behold, without indignation, the unrelenting per- 
secution with which he had been followed from his 
earliest days, by the most powerful men in the king- 
dom ; the obstinate and rancorous hatred which had 
arbitrarily excluded him from the pursuit of an honor- 
able profession, and one for which he was peculiarly 
fitted, had harassed him with actions and prosecutions, 
and sought to take his life, upon the pretext of high 
treason, under the abused sanction of the law. His 
political principles, those of pure Whiggism, were 
those in which I had been trained, and of which I 
considered him one of the most efficient advocates. 
With these feelings I entered warmly into his cause, 
and though his attempt proved unsuccessful, was for 
my disinterested and unsolicited exertions, received 
into his confidence ; which confidence, I am proud to 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 17 

say, continued unimpaired until my departure from 
London, on my return home in the summer of 1800. 
It was from the intimacy which ensued, that I gathered 
the several expressions which I am about to relate ; 
which expressions first gave rise to the belief which 
has since risen to conviction, that he was Junius. In 
the summer of the year 1797, I held a conversation 
with him upon the subject of his controversy with 
Junius, in which, after mentioning my admiration of 
the style of Junius, I added with a smile, that I of 
course excepted his harsh epithets and coarse invective 
against Parson Home ; upon which Mr. Tooke re- 
plied, smiling, " Junius is the best friend I ever had 
on earth." . 

On another occasion, in my presence, a mutual and 
reverend friend, in a similar conversation, put the 
question directly to Mr. Tooke. — " Do you then 
know the author of Junius ?"— " Yes," replied he, 
" I do know him better than any man in England." — 
" Pray, Sir, is he now living f" — " Yes, my dear Sir, 
he is yet alive."—" He must then be an old man — do . 
you know his age ?"— Mr. Tooke instantly replied, 
" Strange as it may seem, I can assure you that Parson 
Home and Junius were born on the same day in the 
City of Westminster." 



IS MEMOIRS OF 

The singular nature of these avowals, connected with 
so celebrated a controversy, immediately gave me the 
impression, that he was either himself, as his expressions 
imply, the writer of Junius, or was so intimately con- 
nected with the writer, as to have the means of making 
the discovery. In this I find myself corroborated by 
the following circumstance related in the life of Tooke, 
by Alexander Stephens, and published in 1813, (page 
358, vol. ii.) 

On the 21st June, 1S07, at Mr. Tooke's house at 
Wimbledon, some conversation occurred that day at 
dinner relative to Junius. He laughed at the idea of 
Mr. Boyd's being the author, as affirmed by Almon. 
On being told that Henry Sampson Woodfall had in- 
timated that he was in possession of several letters from 
him, in a fine Italian hand, and seemingly written by 
means of a crow-quill, he observed, " that Mr. Wood- 
fall was a very honest man, but he doubted the fact ! 
They had been all surrendered." 

" One of the company now asked if he knew the 
author? On the question being put, he immediately 
crossed his knife and fork on his plate, and assuming 
a stern look, replied ' I do.' His manner, tone, and 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 19 

attitude, were all too formidable to admit of any further 
interrogatories." 

From the circumstances which 1 have narrated, as 
coming under my personal observation, and the pecu- 
liar manner in which it was Mr. Tooke's pleasure to 
speak on the subject, it became my conviction, that he 
was himself the author. From the insolated facts, it is 
clear that he knew the writer. If, in the course of the 
after inquiry, any fact had appeared, which rendered 
it physically impossible, that he could have been the 
author : if the political principles therein avowed had 
been found differing essentially from his, or the style 
and manner of the letters had been found radically 
different from Mr. Tooke's style and manner, the 
naked truth would have still remained for aid in an- 
other inquiry, that ToOKE knew the author. But 
when no such discrepances are found to exist, and in 
all material points, remarkable coincidences are found ; 
it is, when connected with the declaration of Junius, 
" that he was the sole depository of his own secret," 
evidence that they were the same. That "Parson 
Home" and the unknown antagonist with whom he 
wared, were but varieties of the same great man. 



CHAPTER II. 

A VERY ingenious and elaborate work on the present 
subject, was published a few years since in England, 
entitled, " The identity of Junius with a distinguished 
living character established — including a supplement, 
consisting of fac-similes of handwriting, and other illus- 
trations." It is understood to be the production of 
Mr. John Taylor, a very industrious and candid writer. 
In this work the claims of Sir Philip Francis are urged 
with so much apparent force and proof, that it is ne- 
cessary, (by more closely discussing and disposing of 
them,) to clear the way for other examination. The 
air of complete decision and confidence with which 
Mr. Taylor presses his arguments, adds considerably 
to their weight and effect. To those who have not 
examined the subject in all its bearings, the sincere 
conviction of an honest and able man who has studied 
it thoroughly, has deservedly some of the force of evi- 
dence in favor of its truth. Upon grounds similar to 



22 MEMOIRS OF 

this, the opinion seems to spread that Mr. Taylor's 
arguments and proofs are irrefragable, and that Sir 
Philip is undeniably identified with Junius. But, 
however singular some of the circumstances and coin- 
cidences may be, (and I am free to confess that some 
of them are so remarkable, as rarely to be found in the 
chapter of accidents,) there are several objections to 
his claims which appear to me unanswerable. 

A most formidable objection is contained in the fact, 
that Sir Philip has expressly disclaimed the authorship 
attributed to him. Soon after the appearance of Mr. 
Taylor's pamphlet, the editor of the Monthly Magazine 
(Sir Richard Phillips I believe,) intended to pursue the 
inquiry in the form of « ppvipw Tn orrlpr, however, 
to know Sir Phillips' pleasure on the subject, and to 
receive some admission from him, (if he really were the 
author) he addressed him a note, in which he directly 
made the inquiry. To this he received the following 
epistle in reply from Sir Philip Francis : — 

" Sir — The great civility of your letter induces me 
" to answer it, which, with reference merely to the sub- 
"ject matter, I should have declined. Whether you 
" will assist in giving currency to a silly, malignant 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 23 

" falsehood, is a question for your own discretion. To 
" me it is a matter of perfect indifference. 
" I am, Sir, 

" Yours, &c. 

"P. Francis." 

This seems to me to put the matter at rest, for I can- 
not understand Mr. Taylor's special pleading upon the 
terms on which it is drawn up. To my understanding 
it is no less than a direct affirmation that the charge of 
being the author was " a silly malignant falsehood.' 1 
This is the unequivocal meaning of the words ; and in 
another place I shall show, that, situated as Sir Philip 
was in life, at that time, it is truly a malignity, (not- 
withstanding Mr. Taylor's disclaimers) to put into his 
mouth the sentiments and language of Junius ; because 
it would fasten upon him an indelible stain of character, 
involving moral delinquences, breaches of honor, gra- 
titude and feeling, of which no man would suspect Sir 
Philip. 

Dr. Parr, upon this subject, and with reference to 
this work of Mr. Taylor's, thus speaks — " The im- 
pression produced by a well written pamphlet, and an 
elaborate critique upon it, in the Edinburgh Review, 
still direct the national faith towards Sir Philip Francis. 



24 MEMOIRS OF 

He was too proud to tell a lie, and he disclaimed the 
work. He was too vain to refuse celebrity, which he 
was conscious of deserving. He was too intrepid to 
shrink when danger had nearly passed by. He was 
too irascible to keep the secret, by the publication of 
which, he, at this time of day, could injure no party 
with whom he is connected, nor any individual for 
whom he cared. Besides, my dear Sir, we have many 
books of his writings upon many subjects, and all of 
them stamped with the same character of mind. Their 
general lexis (as we say in Greek) has no resemblance 
to the lexis of Junius, and the resemblance in par- 
ticulars can have far less weight than th^ resemblance 
of which we have no vestage. Francis uniformly 
writes English, there are gallicisms in Junius. F ncis 
is furious, but not malevolent ; FrancL is never cool, 
and Junius is seldom ardent." Again, " We must all 
grant that a strong case has been made out for Fran- 
cis, but I could set up very stout objections t o those 
claims. It was not in his nature to keep a secret. 
He would have told it from vanity, or from his courage, 
or from his patriotism. His bitterness, his vivacity, 
his acuteness, are stamped in characters very peculiar 
upon many publications that bear his name, and very 
faint indeed is their resemblance to the spirit, and in 
an extended sense of the word, to the style of Junius" 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 25 

This opinion of so excellent a judge of composition 
as Dr. Parr, deserves great attention ; and his con- 
clusions from the substance of the second objection to 
Sir Philips' claims, viz. the inequality of his avowed 
writings with the writings of Junius. On this part 
of the argument we shall quote at large from the re- 
miniscences of Charles Butler, Esq., whose opinions, 
as those of an eminent literary and legal character, 
and a cotemporary of Junius, are entitled to unreserved 
attention.' 1 The external evidence produced in these 
pamphlets is strong, so strong perhaps that if he had 
been tried upon it for a lible, and the case had rested 
upon the facts from which this evidence. Is formed, the 
judge would have directed the jury to find him guilty. 
B-^the internal evidence against him, from the in- 
equality of his acknowledged writings, is also very 
strong: If ihe able author of the article, "Junius" in 
the .Edinburgh Review (for November, 1817) had not 
profe^ ad a different opinion, the present writer would 
have pronounced it decisive. That respectable writer 
produces several passages from the works of which Sir 
Philip was certainly the author, and finds in them a 
similar tone and equal merit ; with due deference to his 
authority, the reminiscent begs leave to think, that if 
these passages serve to show that Sir Philip was no 

4 



26 MEMOIRS OF 

mean writer, they also prove, that he was not Junius. 
To bring the question to a direct issue — are the glow 
and loftiness discernible in every page of Junius, once 
visible in any of these extracts ? Where do we find in 
the writings of Sir Philip, " those thoughts that breathe, 
those words that burn," that Junius scatters in every 
page ? A single drop of the cobra copella which falls 
from Junius so often ? 

Junius had evidently been a great constitutional 
reader ; Does Sir Philip appear to have been such, 
from any of his writings, even the latest ? 

But, to bring the matter at once to issue, we shall 
transcribe from the article on Junius, in the Edinburgh 
Review, a passage from a publication in which Sir 
Philip attacks Lord Thurlow, then insert a passage in 
which Junius attacks Lord Mansfield. We request 
our readers will compare them, and afterward com- 
pare the extract from Junius, with the passage of Hyder 
Ally's invasion of the Carnatic, transcribed from one 
of Mr. Burke's speeches in a future part of this publi- 
cation. Will he not find the inferiority of Sir Philip 
so great as to render it impossible that he should have 
been the author of Jimms' Letters 9 On the other hand, 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 27 

will he not find the difference, we do not say in the 
styles, but in the minds of Junius and Burke, to be 
such as to render it quite evident that Burke and 
Junius were not the same person f 



SIR PHILIP FRANCIS' CHARACTER OF LORD 
THURLOW. 

" It is well known that a gross and public insult had 
been offered to the memory of General Clavering and 
Colonel Monson, by a person of high rank in this 
country. He was happy when he heard that his 
name was included in it with theirs. So highly did 
he respect the character of those men, that he deemed 
it an honor to share in the injustice it had suffered. 
It was in compliance with the forms of the house, 
and not to shelter himself, or out of tenderness to the 
party, that he forebore to name him. He meant to 
describe him so exactly, that he could not be mistaken. 
He declared in his place, in a great assembly, and in 
the course of a grave deliberation, ' that it would have 
been happy for this country, if General Clavering, 
Colonel Monson and Mr. Francis, had been drowned 
in their passage to India.' If this poor and spiteful 



2S MEMOIRS OF 

invective had been uttered by a man of no conse- 
quence or repute, by any light, trifling, inconsiderate 
person, by a lord of the bed-chamber, for example, or 
any of the other silken barons of modern days, he 
should have heard it with indifference. But when it 
was seriously urged and deliberately insisted on by a 
grave lord of parliament — by a judge — by a man of 
ability and eminence in his profession, whose personal 
disposition was serious, who carried gravity to stern- 
ness, and sternness to ferocity, it could not be receiv- 
ed with indifference, or answered without resentment. 
Such a man would be thought to have inquired before 
he pronounced. From his mouth, a reproach was a 
sentence, an invective was a judgment. The accidents 
of life, and not any original distinction that he knew 
of, had placed him too high, and himself at too great 
a distance from him, to admit of any other answer than 
a public defiance, for General Clavering, for Colonel 
Monson, and for himself. This was not a party ques- 
tion, nor should it be left to so feeble an advocate as 
he was, to support it. The friends and fellow-soldiers 
of General Clavering and Colonel Monson would 
assist him in defending their memory. He demanded 
and expected the support of every man of honor in 
that house, and in the kingdom. What character was 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 29 

safe, if slander was permitted to attack the reputation 
of two of the most honorable and virtuous men that 
ever were employed, or ever perished in the service of 
their country ? He knew that the authority of this 
man was not without weight ; but he had an infinitely 
higher authority to oppose it. He had the happiness of 
hearing the merits of General Clavering and Colonel 
Monson acknowledged and applauded in terms to 
which he was not at liberty to do more than to allude : 
they were rapid and expressive. He must not venture 
to repeat, lest he should do them injustice, or violate 
the forms of respect, where essentially he owed and felt 
the most. But he was sufficiently understood. The 
generous sensations that animate the royal mind, were 
easily distinguished from those which rankled in the 
heart of that person who was supposed to be the keeper 
of the royal conscience." 



EXTRACT FROM THE LETTER OF JUNIUS TO LORD 
MANSFIELD. 

"You will not question my veracity, when I assure 
you that it has not been owing to any particular respect 
for your person that I have abstained from you so long. 



30 MEMOIRS Ol 

Beside the distress and danger with which the press is 
threatened, when your lordship is party, and the party- 
is to be judge, I confess I have been deterred by the 
difficulty of the task. Our language has no term of 
reproach, the mind has no idea of detestation, which 
has not already been happily applied to you and ex- 
hausted. Ample justice has been done by abler pens 
than mine to the separate merits of your life and char- 
acter. Let it be my humble office to collect the scat- 
tered sweets, till their united virtue tortures the sense. 

" Permit me to begin with paying a just tribute to 
Scotch sincerity, wherever I find it. I own I am not 
apt to confide in the professions of gentlemen of that 
country, and when they smile, I feel an involuntary 
emotion to guard myself against mischief. With this 
general opinion of an ancient nation, I always thought 
it much to your lordship's honor, that, in your earlier 
days, you were but little infected with the prudence of 
your country. You had some original attachments, 
which you took every proper opportunity to acknow- 
ledge. The liberal spirit of youth prevailed over your 
native discretion. Your zeal in the cause of an un- 
happy prince was expressed with the sincerity of wine, 
and some of the solemnities of religion. This 1 con- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 31 

ceive is the most amiable point of view in which your 
character has appeared. Like an honest man, you took 
that part in politics, which might have been expected 
from your birth, education, country, and connexions. 
There was something generous in your attachment to 
the banished house of Stuart. We lament the mistakes 
of a good man, and do not begin to detest him until 
he affects to renounce his principles. Why did you not 
adhere to that loyalty you once professed ? Why did 
you not follow the example of your worthy brother ? 
With him you might have shared in the honor of the 
Pretender's confidence — with him you might have pre- 
served the integrity of your character, and England, 
I think, might have spared you without regret. Your 
friends will say perhaps, that although you deserted the 
fortune of your liege lord, you have adhered firmly to the 
principles which drove his father from the throne ! — 
that without openly supporting the person, you have 
done essential service to the cause, and consoled your- 
self for the loss of a favorite family, by reviving and 
establishing the maxims of their government. This is 
the way in which a Scotchman's understanding corrects 
the errors of his heart. My lord, 1 acknowledge the 
truth of the defence, and can trace it through all your 
cfcndact. I see through your whole life, one uniform 



3i2 MEMOIRS Ol 

plan to enlarge the power of the crown, at the expense 
of the liberty of the subject. To this object, your 
thoughts, words, and actions, have been constantly 
directed. In contempt or ignorance of the common 
law of England, you have made it your study to intro- 
duce into the court, where you preside, maxims of 
jurisprudence unknown to Englishmen. The Roman 
code, the law of nations, and the opinion of foreign 
civilians, are your perpetual theme ; — but whoever 
heard you mention magna charta or the bill of rights, 
with approbation or respect? By such treacherous 
arts, the noble simplicity and the spirit of our laws 
were first corrupted. The Norman conquest was not 
complete until Norman lawyers had introduced their 
laws, and reduced slavery to a system. This one 
leading principle directs your interpretation of the 
laws, and accounts for your treatment of juries. It is 
not in political questions only, (for there the courtier 
might be forgotten,) but let the cause be what it ma}', 
your understanding is equally on the rack, either to 
contract the power of the jury, or to mislead their 
judgement. For the truth of this assertion, I appeal to 
the doctrine you delivered in Lord Grosvenor's cause. 
An action for criminal conversation being brought by 
a peer against a prince of the blood, you were daring 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 33 

enough to tell the jury, that in fixing the damages, 
they were to pay no regard to the quality or fortune of 
the parties ; — that it was a trial between A. and B ; — 
that they were to consider the offence in a moral light 
only, and give no greater damages to a peer of the 
realm than to the meanest mechanic. I shall not at- 
tempt to refute a doctrine, which, if it was meant for 
law, carries falsehood and absurdity upon the face of 
it; but if it was meant for a declaration of your politi- 
cal creed, is clear and consistent. Under an arbitrary 
government, all ranks and distinctions are confounded. 
The honor of a nobleman is no more considered than 
the reputation of a peasant, for with different liveries 
they are equally slaves. 

" Even in matters of private property, we see the 
same bias and inclination to depart from the decisions 
of your predecessors, which you certainly ought to 
receive as evidence of the common law. Instead of 
those certain, positive rules, by which the judgment of 
a court of law should be invariably determined, you 
have fondly introduced your own unsettled notions of 
equity and substantial justice. Decisions given upon 
such principles do not alarm the public so much as 
they ought, because the consequence and tendency of 
each particular instance, is not observed or regarded. 

5 



34 MEMOIRS OF 

In the mean time the practice gains ground ; the court 
of king's bench becomes a court of equity, and the 
judge, instead of consulting strictly the law of the land, 
refers only to the wisdom of the court, and to the purity 
of his own conscience. The name of Mr. Justice Yates 
will naturally revive in your mind some of those emo- 
tions of fear and detestation, with which you always be- 
held him. That great lawyer, that honest man, saw 
your whole conduct in the light that I do. After years 
of ineffectual resistance to the pernicious principles in- 
troduced by your lordship, and uniformly supported by 
your humble friends upon the bench, he determined to 
quit a court whose proceedings and decisions he could 
neither assent to with honor, nor oppose with success." 

Such, in our opinion, is the state of the question : 
all external evidence is in favor of Sir Philip, all in- 
ternal evidence is against him. Thus the argument 
on each side neutralizes the argument on the other, 
and the pretension of Sir Philip vanishes. 

A third hypothesis is therefore necessary : the con- 
clusion to which it should lead, ought to be such as is 
consistent with the evidence on each side, and restores 
to each its individual activity. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 35 

Now this is done, and perhaps can only be done by 
supposing that Sir Philip was not Junius, but the 
amanuensis of Junius ; that the real Junius was too 
high to be bought; so that when he made his terms 
with government, he was contented to remain in a 
proud obscurity, but stipulated a boon for his scribe, 
and was of consequence enough to insist that the boon 
should be liberal. Now several passages in Junius' 
Letters seems to show that he employed an amanuensis. 
In a note to Woodfall, he says, " You shall have the 
" letter some time to-morrow. It cannot be corrected 
" and copied sooner." In another he says, "The en- 
" closed, though begun within these few days, has been 
" greatly labored. It is very correctly copied." In 
" another he mentions, " the gentleman who transacts 
" the conveyancing part of their correspondence," and 
" who told him, " there was much difficulty last night." 
That gentleman, therefore, must have known that 
a mysterious something attended these letters. Mr. 
Jackson's testimony, as reported by Woodfall, is, that 
" this gentleman wore a bag and sword." If the re- 
collection of the writer, that Junius' letter to the King, 
is in a handwriting different from the handwriting of 
the other letters, be accurate, the evidence for an 
amanuensis is certainly very strong. 



36 MEMOIRS OF 

If the copies to which Junius refers, were made not 
by himself, but which is certainly most probable by 
some other person, it follows incontrovertibly, that Sir 
Philip Francis and Junius were different persons. 

We do not, however say, that Sir Philip was a mere 
copyist : he may occasionally have conveyed useful in- 
formation, and suggested useful hints to his principles, 
so that, to a certain extent, he might, without impro- 
priety, be said to have been his collaborator. 

To this hypothesis, the reminiscent begs leave to 
say, that he inclines ; it includes all the data required 
by him for the author of Junius; it equally admits the 
arguments in favor of Sir Philip Francis from external, 
and the arguments against him from internal evidence, 
and reconciles and gives activity to each. 

Junius in his dedication, prefixed to his own edition 
of his letters, declares that, " he was the sole deposi- 
tary of his own secret." This seems not to be easily 
reconcileable with what he says in one of his letters to 
Woodfall. " The truth is, that there are people 
" about me whom I would wish not to contradict, and 
"who had rather see Junius in the papers ever so im- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 37 

« properly, than not at all." This sounds like the 
language of a partisan, who felt both his talents and 
his chains ; and it may be thought a confirmation, 
though slight, of the reminiscent' s hypothesis. 

Another and very powerful objection is found in the 
limited means, and subordinate situation of Sir Philip 
Francis, at the time of the publication of the letters. 
In his private correspondence with Woodfall, Junius 
describes himself as a man of fortune, of ample means 
to indemnify his publisher for all pecuniary damage and 
loss, constantly proffering assistance, and refusing any 
participation in the profits of his work. When the first 
edition was upon the point of publication, Woodfall 
urged him either to receive half the profits, or to point 
out some institution to whom it might be presented. 
His reply is contained in a private letter to Woodfall 
in these words : — " What you say about the profits is 
" very handsome. I like to deal with such men. As 
" for myself, be assured, that ' 1 am above all pecuniary 
" views,' and no other person 1 think has any claim to 
" share with you. Make the most of it therefore, and 
" let your views in life be directed to a solid, however 
" moderate independence : without it, no man can be 
" happy or even honest." Again he writes, " For the 
" matter of assistance, be assured, that if a question 



38 MEMOIRS OF 

" should arise upon any writings of mine, you shall 
" never want it. In point of money be assured you shall 
" never suffer." When the printer was prosecuted he 
writes in this manner. " If your affair should come 
" to trial, and you should be found guilty, you will 
" then let me know what expense falls particularly on 
" yourself, for I understand you are engaged with 
" other proprietors ; some way or other, you shall be 
" reimbursed." 

In his public letters he maintained the same idea, hint- 
ing at his own rank and importance. " I should have 
" hoped that even my name might carry some authority 
" with it." And again to Sir William Draper, "You 
" cannot but know, that the republication of my letters 
" was no more than a catch-penny contrivance of a 
" printer, in which it was impossible I should be con- 
" cerned." 

In every of these instances, the declarations and 
expressions are made unaffectedly, and without the 
slightest air of pretension. 

Now it so happens that none of these circumstances 
belong in any sense to the situation, rank, or means of 
Francis. He was a subordinate clerk in the War-office, 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 39 

and possessed no other fortune than his salary of £400 
per annum. 

Besides the inequality of talent, and the want of 
fortune, the advocates of Francis have a formidable 
obstacle to encounter in his want of leisure. The 
letters of Junius are admitted to be productions of great 
labor; and it is difficult to conceive how the writer 
could collect his facts, and compose so much, and 
with such difficulty, with another occupation and a 
divided attention. " Such finished forms of composi- 
tion," says the author of the preliminary essay prefixed 
to the last edition of Woodfall's Junius, "bear in 
" themselves, the most evident marks of elaborate fore- 
" cast and revisal ; and the author rather boasted of 
«' the pains he had bestowed upon them than attempted 
" to cancel his labor." Again, in a subsequent part ; 
no man but he who with a thorough knowledge of our 
author's style, undertakes to examine all the numbers 
of the Public Advertiser for the three years in question, 
can have any idea of the immense fatigue and trouble 
he submitted to. Instead of wondering that he should 
have disappeared at the distance of about five years, we 
ought much rather to be surprised that he should have 
persevered through half this period, with a spirit at 
once so indefatigable and invincible. Junius in his 



40 MEMOIRS OP 

private letters, complains of his " weariness," the 
" slavery of writing.'''' The habits of composition of 
Sir Philip Francis were (in the given account by his 
biographers and advocates,) slow and difficult ; so far 
they coincide with Junius. But he held a station of con- 
fidence and trust in an important and laborious office, 
requiring his constant attendance and personal labor. 
The inquiry then naturally arises — was it possible for 
him in addition to his official duties, and with his habits 
of composition, to have maintained so long, full and 
perfect a correspondence with the public — with Wood- 
fall in private — with Mr. Wilkes and others ? The essay 
above referred to, goes on to maintain, that in the 
year 1769, " the author maintained not less than fifty- 
four communications with Mr. Woodfall ; that not a 
single month passed without one or more acts of inter- 
course ; that some of them had not less than seven, and 
many of them not less than six ; at times directed to 
events that had recurred only a few days antecedently ; 
that the two most distant communications were not 
more than three weeks a-part ; that several of them were 
daily, and the greater part of them not more than a 
week from each other." Add to this the correspon- 
dence with Wilkes, and the public letters, and it will be 
seen at once that Sir Philip Francis could not have 
been Junius. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 41 

The claims of Sir Philip are further supported, 
(and indeed this is the chief support) by the circum- 
stance that, without family, fortune, or interest at court ; 
in short, without any claim to the notice of the admin- 
istration, he was suddenly appointed to a high and 
lucrative office in India, such as a nobleman would be 
proud to accept. This, say his advocates, shows that 
something was attached to Sir Philip Francis, which 
made the purchase of him at that time, even at a high 
price, an object to government. Now, at the critical 
moment, when he was promoted, Junius ceased to 
write ; hence they conclude, the silence of Junius was 
purchased by the promotion of Sir Philip. 

This might be accounted for upon Mr. Butler's 
hypothesis, without going into other proof, or conclud- 
ing that Sir Philip was himself Junius. To this how- 
ever there is a strong objection, which goes to the 
entire argument in favor of Sir Philip Francis, either 
as amanuensis or principal, drawn from his handwriting. 
It is admitted by all, that Junius was exposed to great 
danger in publishing his letters, of this he appears con- 
stantly sensible, anxiously enjoining upon his pub- 
lisher the severest caution, and declaring his convic- 
tion " that he should not survive the discovery three 

6 



42 MEMOIRS OP 

days." Now, Mr. Taylor's unforced admission de- 
stroys Sir Philip's claims from this argument. " Easy 
" access," says he, " to his writing might be had both 
" in the War-office and the Secretary of States' office. 
" During the fourteen years that he was occupied in 
" those departments, it must have met the eye of many 
"persons both in administration and out of power. 
" Lord Chatham knew it well, for Sir Philip at one 
" time acted as his Secretary — Lord Holland, the Earl 
" of Egremont, the Earl of Kinnoull, Mr. Calcraft, and 
"many others were no strangers to it. To Lord Bar- 
" rington the character was familiar, and the different 
" clerks, Bradshaw, Chamier, &c. might have recog- 
" nized it in spite of the disguise." 

It is upon other grounds then, than as amanuensis of 
Junius that the promotion of Sir Philip must be ac- 
counted for ; we shall copy the account given of it in 
the authentic memoirs of his life, quoted so often by 
Mr. Taylor, to which we shall add Sir Philip's own 
statement given in the House of Commons, of the pat- 
rons of his early life ; and we shall, I think, discover the 
reasons why he characterized the attempt to identify 
him with Junius, " as false and malignant." We shall 
find that his only friends and efficient patrons, before, 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 43 

during, and after the time of the publication of the 
letters of Junius, were the very men whom Junius 
most bitterly and unsparingly attacks and abuses. , 

"In 1763 he was appointed by the late Lord Mendip, 
then Wellbore Ellis, Esq., Secretary of War, to a con- 
siderable post in the War-office, which he resigned in 
1772, in consequence of a difference with Viscount 
Barringtion, by whom he thought himself injured. 
Possibly Lord Barrington thought so too, or that 
something was due to Mr. Francis, as will appear 
hereafter. The greatest part of the year 1772, he 
spent in travelling. In about a half year after his 
return to England, Lord Barrington most honorably 
and generously recommended him to Lord North, by 
whom his name was inserted in an Act of Parliament, 
passed in June 1773, to be a member of the council 
appointed for the government of Bengal, in conjunc- 
tion with Warren Hastings, Governor-general ; John 
Clavering, Commander-in-chief; George Monson, and 
Richard Barwell."— Memoirs, 

Of equal validity is what fell from Sir Philip in the 
course of a speech on India affairs, where he gave a 
short account of " such particulars of his public life as 



44 MEMOIRS OF 

led to his appointment to India." Mr. Francis observ- 
ed, " that he had been brought up in the Secretary of 
" State's office, where he had the happiness to pos- 
" sess the favor of the late Earl of Egremont, then 
" Secretary of State. That in 1763, Mr. Ellis had 
" appointed him to fill a station of great trust in the 
" War-office. That Lord Barrington who succeeded 
" Mr. Ellis, had recommended him to a noble lord, 
" as a fit person to be sent out to India, as a member 
" of the government of Bengal. Till that recommen- 
" dation he had not the honor of being known to Lord 
" North. He had, therefore, obtained a seat in the 
" council at Calcutta, not through any private interest 
" or intrigue ; but he was taken up upon recommenda- 
" tion, and that the recommendation of persons of 
" high rank ; those who best knew his character and 
" qualifications, and who certainly would not have so 
" far disgraced themselves as to have recommended 
" an improper person, knowing him to be such, to go 
" out to India in a station of so much power and im- 
" portance. He had accordingly been nominated with 
" General Clavering and Colonel Monson, in the bill 
" of 1773." On another occasion, Sir Philip says, 
" In the early part of my life I had the good fortune 
" to hold a place very inconsiderable in itself, but im- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 45 

• ; mediately under the late Earl of Chatham. He 
" descended from his station to take notice of mine, 
" and he honored me with repeated marks of his 
" favor and protection. How warmly in return I was 
" attached to his person, and how I have been grateful 
" to his memory — they who know me know *****. In 
" the year 1760, Mr. Secretary Pitt recommended it 
" to the late King, to send the present Earl of Kin- 
" noull, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipoten- 
" tiary to Lisbon. The same recommendation engaged 
" the noble lord to appoint me his Secretary." 

Mr. Butler, in note, page 81, of his reminiscences, 
says : — " The reminiscent has been informed by the 
" present Bishop of Durham, that Sir Philip owed 
"his continuance of his seat in the War-office, to 
" the kindness of Lord Barrington, the prelate's 
" brother; and that Sir Philip's appointment to India 
" was chiefly, if not wholly due to his lordship's re- 
" commendation of him to Lord North." 

In these extracts and avowels, we have distinctly 
traced the progress of Sir Philip Francis in the con- 
fidence of several of the most influential men of the 
the day : — Lord Chatham, the Earl of Egremont, the 



46 MEMOIRS OF 

Earl of Kinnoull, Mr. Ellis, (afterwards Lord Mendip) 
and Viscount Barrington, (for we can scarcely consider 
the temporary dispute with his lordship as of any impro- 
tance, it being so speedily reconciled and followed by 
such evidence of increased favor on the part of the Vis- 
count.) The promotion received by Sir Philip may there- 
fore be fairly considered as a high, perhaps too high a 
reward for diligent services in inferior departments, as 
a boon bestowed by partial friendship ; but worthily 
bestowed as his honorable and diligent discharge of 
embarassing duties, as his distinguished talents and 
patroitism have since fully shown. It does not appear 
that at the time of the appointment of Sir Philip, any 
such extraordinary excitement was produced, as is 
always the case, when an obscure man is promoted 
above his deserts, and without ostensible cause., Even 
the most acute, (and when personal resentments mingle 
with party feeling, even dullness can overcome a con- 
siderable degree of selfish acuteness,) did not from the 
appointment prove the connection of Sir Philip Francis 
with the " audacious libeller," or seek to account 
for the singularity of a clerk in the War-office obtaining 
so high an office ; by supposing a singularity even more 
remote from probability, and approaching the impos- 
sible, that that clerk must have been Junius. But 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 47 

there is a more solemn argument arising upon these 
facts which appears to the moral feeling of all the 
advocates of Sir Philip. The successful attempt to 
identify him with Junius would be followed by the total 
sacrifice of his public and private character ; and thi9 
is why he adds to its description of " false," the epithet 
" malignant." Most of the persons above mentioned 
as the patrons of Sir Philip, and so acknowledged 
with gratitude by himself on several occasions, were, 
during the very time that Sir Philip was receiving their 
favors, the objects of the most unmeasured and rancor- 
ous abuse of Junius. A paper written under another 
signature, but avowedly written by Junius, employs 
nearly the same terms of indignation towards Lord 
Chatham, which were afterwards so vehemently applied 
to the Duke of Grafton. " The memoirs of Lord 
Barrington" are an evidence of his unmitigated, and 
evidently personal hatred and contempt of that noble- 
man. Towards Mr. Ellis, who seems to have been the 
steady friend and patron of Sir Philip, and highly in- 
strumental in every step of his advancement, the langu- 
age of Junius is uniformly contemptuous in the highest 
degree. " The Gui Faux of the fable Wellbore Ellis." 
" Little Mannikin Ellis." " The most contemptible 
little piece of machinery in the whole kingdom."— 



48 MEMOIRS OF, &C 

11 Poor man." Is this the language of a dependant; 
applied to a powerful and disinterested friend ? If so, 
it is the language of one destitute of every feeling of 
gratitude and honor, and sense of the common decen- 
cies of life ; I acquit Sir Philip Francis of the baseness, 
and have not " the malignity" to charge him with the 
authorship of Junius. 

There are many minor arguments against his claims, 
in addition to the above ; but they constitute to my 
mind, abundant and convincing proof of what I may 
properly term the innocence of Sir Philip Francis. 



CHAPTER III. 

The claims of Sir Philip Francis, which have been 
thus briefly, but I think conclusively discussed, are the 
strongest which have ever been heretofore advanced 
in favor of any candidate. But the arguments I have 
urged in the last chapter, appear to me to be so 
strong against his claims, as in the judgment even of 
his advocates, to neutralize at least the arguments in 
his favor. And being confirmed by the opinions of 
such men as Mr. Butler and Dr. Parr, who have exa- 
mined the subject, and are so well qualified to decide 
upon that examination, I venture to pronounce him 
not Junius. The preliminary essay which has been 
alluded to, has treated of all the proofs which have at 
several times been brought forward, for the substan- 
tiating of different claims, and summarily disposed of 
them all. The pretensions of Lloyd, Roberts, Dyer, 
Rosenhagen, Boyd and Wilkes, are examined, and 
refuted decisively. Burke, Flood, Hamilton, Lord 
Sackville, General Charles Lee, Dunning, (Lord 

7 



50 MEMOIRS OF 

Ashburton,) are severally mentioned, and their pre- 
tensions disproved. 

We shall insert, in his own words, the summary view 
which the able writer of that essay takes of the charac- 
ter which he has been enabled to assign to Junius, 
from an attentive perusal of his letters, public and 
private, and the admissions therein contained. We 
shall then endeavor to show how closely the mind, 
character and circumstances of John Horne Tooke, 
correspond with all we know of Junius. "From the 
observations contained in this essay, it should seem to 
follow, unquestionably, that the author of the letters 
of Junius was an Englishman of highly cultivated 
education ; deeply versed in the language, the laws, 
the constitution, and history of his native country ; 
hat he was a man of easy, if not affluent circumstan- 
ces, of unsullied honor and generosity, who had it 
equally in his heart and in his power to contribute to 
the necessities of those who were exposed to troubles 
of any kind, upon his own account ; that he was in 
habits of confidential intercourse, if not with different 
members of the cabinet, with politicians who were 
most intimately familiar with the court, and intrusted 
with all its secrets ; that he had attained an age 
which would allow him, without vanity, to boast of an 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 51 

ample knowledge and experience of the world; that 
during the years 1767, 68, 69, 70, 71, and part of 72, 
he resided almost constantly in London, or its vicinity, 
devoting a very large portion of his time to political 
concerns, and publishing his political lucubrations, 
under different signatures, in the Public Advertiser. 
That, in his natural temper, he was quick, irritable 
and impetuous, subject to political prejudices, and 
strong personal animosities, but of a high independent 
spirit, honestly attached to the principles of the consti- 
tution, and fearless and indefatigable in maintaining 
them ; that he was strict in his moral conduct, and 
in his attention to public decorum, an avowed member 
of the established church — and, though acquainted 
with English judicature, not a lawyer by profession." 

To pursue this inquiry with the attention it deserves, 
it will be first of all necessary to examine how far the 
life, character, and opinions of Horne Tooke qualify 
him for being considered the writer of Junius. For 
this purpose the following brief memoir of his life has 
been compiled from several biographical sketches : — 

John Horne, afterwards known as John Horne 
Tooke, was the son of a Mr. Horne, Poulterer, in 
Newport-street, Westminster, and was born on the 



52 MEMOIRS OF 

26th of June, 1736. His father attained considerable 
opulence, and became well known as Treasurer of the 
Middlesex Hospital. John Horne enjoyed the best 
advantages that his native city could afford, having 
been sent to Westminster at an early age. It was soon 
remarked that Horne possessed considerable talents 
and application ; but these were only exerted on ex- 
traordinary occasions, for at other times he was rather 
indolent, and so chary indeed was he of his abilities 
and his industry, that he was often accustomed to em- 
ploy lads of an inferior capacity to perform his tasks 
for him. Mr. Horne, at the usual age, removed to 
Eaton, and soon distinguished himself among his con- 
temporaries by the shrewdness of his remarks, the 
keenness of his wit, and the severity of his satire — 
satire never exerted but against what either was or ap- 
peared to him to be an abuse. From this celebrated 
school, the cradle of so many men of worth and talent, 
he was sent to Cambridge, and entered of St. John's 
College, in 1754. Here he took his degree of A. B., 
and afterwards officiated as an usher in a boarding- 
school at Blackheath. In the choice of a profession, 
that of the law seems to have been the object of Mr. 
Horne' s pai-tiality. But his family, who had never 
sanctioned his attachment to legal studies, deemed the 
church far more legible as a profession, and he was 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 53 

obliged to yield to the admonitions and entreaties of 
his parents. It seems, however, that a compromise 
took place, and an assurance was given him of a per- 
manent provision in case he abandoned the law. Ac- 
cordingly in 1 760, he was admitted a Priest of the 
Church of England, by John Thomas, Bishop of Sa- 
rum ; having previously received Deacons orders, and 
officiated as curate in Kent. Upon this he was in- 
ducted into the living of Brentford, purchased for 
him by his father. Here he officiated for some time, 
but in 1763, we find him travelling on the Continent as 
tutor to Mr. Elwes, son of the celebrated miser of that 
name. Towards the end of the year 1764, the tutor, 
who was delighted with this tour, returned with his 
pupil to England ; and had he been heartily attached 
to his profession, there can be but little doubt that he 
might have enjoyed a fair share of its advantages. 
While a boy, he had been introduced at Leicester 
House, by means of Dr. De Mainbray, who was still 
caressed by the young monarch, and was accustomed 
to play with his majesty, (George III.) who was ex- 
actly two years younger than himself, once or twice a- 
week. He enjoyed the friendship of Mr. Elwes, who 
possessed considerable influence ; and he was also pat- 
ronized by Mr. Levint)', the Receiver-general of the 
Customs. By the kind intervention of the latter, appa- 



54 MEMOIRS OF 

rently exerted through the channel of a nobleman in 
high favor at court, he was promised to be appointed 
one of the King's Chaplains ; and had a prospect of 
such other preferment as was sufficient to satisfy his 
wishes. In fine, a man so gifted and so favored, 
might have aspired to all the honors of his profession ; 
and if he had not reposed, like his friend Dr. Beadon, 
beneath the shadow of a cathedral, or erected his mitr- 
ed front in company with the Horsleys and Douglases, 
and the Watsons of his day ; yet, like Paley, and 
many other of the inferior dignitaries of the church, he 
might have enjoyed wealth, respect, and that learned 
ease so dear to a man of letters. 

But we shall soon discover that these flattering ( and 
seductive prospects did not prove sufficient to coun- 
teract certain impressions, which had been indelibly 
engraved on a mind, at once bold and original ; 
avaricious of fame, and disdainful alike of riches and 
preferment, when these appeared to be in opposition 
to his principles. 

Matters were in this train, when unexpected events 
of a public nature occurred, and the part which Mr. 
Horne took in them, destroyed all his prospects of 
preferment. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 55 

These events are found to have originated in the 
illegal imprisonment of the celebrated John Wilkes. 
This gentleman, who had commenced his career as a 
partisan of Mr Pitt, then ex-minister, had been treated 
with a degree of rancor unsactioned by sound policy, 
and a rigor unjustified by the laws. This arbitrary 
arrest and imprisonment when member for Aylsbury, 
by a general warrant afterwards declared to be illegal, 
called forth the energies and jealousy of the whole 
nation. Arrested and sent to the tower by an illegal 
process, the sympathy of the nation was aroused in 
his behalf, and he was soon after liberated, in conse- 
quence of a solemn decision of a court of law, amidst 
the acclamations of the people. As the rights of all 
were supposed to have been violated, so the franchises 
of the whole body of the nation were soon after said to 
be grossly infringed in his person ; and the unceasing 
enmity of the ministers of that day never abated for a 
single moment, until, by a long series of persecution, 
Wilkes became the most popular man in the kingdom* 

This conduct, which savoured of imbecility and in- 
justice, was ascribed by some to treachery. The most 
sinistrous intentions were attributed to those in power ; 
and suppositions were entertained by many of a settled 
design to enslave the people* 



56 MEMOIRS OF 

Even the prince himself, who,' by a wise policy, is 
sheltered from all personal responsibility, did not 
escape animadversion, and was no longer saluted by 
those loyal gratulations with which he had been re- 
cently hailed. 

Such was the situation of public affairs, and so 
feverish and irritable the minds of the nation, when 
the subject of this essay first appeared on the scene. 
Bold, ardent, enthusiastic, he suspected that a regular 
plot was actually formed for its destruction, and al- 
ready anticipated the time, when, like Denmark, 
about a century before, and Sweden, at a subsequent 
period, the liberties of Great Britain were to be laid 
prostrate at the feet of a young, artful, and ambitious 
monarch. 

This suspicion, however strange and unaccountable 
it may appear to some, he cherished until the day of 
his death ; and this ought to be considered as one of 
the SECRET, but powerful springs, by which all the 
actions of his future life were actuated. 

It will, therefore, appear less surprising, perhaps, 
that a man, who considered every infringement of the 
British constitution as a sacrilege, should, on such an 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 57 

occasion, be ready to dash the untasted cup of prefer- 
ment from his lips, and begin his career, by oflering 
up the greatest of all sacrifices, at the altar of public 
freedom. From this moment, therefore, he devoted 
himself to what he considered the public cause ; and 
laying aside all thoughts of ecclesiastic preferment, he 
seemed to have determined early in life, either to vin- 
dicate the liberties of his country, or suffer as a martyr 
in their defence. 

Mr. Horne, after this occurrence above alluded to 
took place, went abroad, having been invited by Mr. 
Taylor to accompany his son during an excursion 
into Italy, in 1765. The active part he had taken in 
behalf of the opposition then under the leading of Mr. 
Pitt, had closed against him all the avenues of church 
preferment, and the direct interference of some of the 
most powerful men of the ministerial side, had put a 
perpetual seal upon his exclusion. 

When Mr. Wilkes returned from France, and being 
foiled in his attempt to represent the city of London, 
canvassed for Middlesex, in 1768; Mr. Horne 
opened houses for him at Brentford, at his own risk, 
and supported his interest so actively, as finally to 

8 



58 MEMOIRS OF 

enable him to be returned to parliament as one of 
the Knights of the Shire for Middlesex. It was he 
who infused a portion of his own spirit and ability 
into the committees for managing the contest ; it was 
he who sometimes in company with the popular can- 
didate, and sometimes by himself, addressed large 
bodies of the electors, who had been collected in dif- 
ferent places for that purpose- In short, in opposition 
to calculation, and, as if to set experience and pre- 
cedent at defiance, Mr. Wilkes, whose fortune was 
desperate, and whose person was liable every moment 
to be seized by a tipstaff, proved finally successful. 
In consequence of a generous burst of indignation, 
excited by a clergyman of the Church of England, 
whose whole income arose out of a small benefice, the 
latter thus suddenly, as if by magic, found means to 
return an outlaw, as Knight of the Shire for the county 
of Middlesex, by the votes of a great majority of free- 
holders. 

It was about this time that Mr. Horne obtained 
some influence in the town of Bedford, and, in conse- 
quence of this, soon became an elector. The Duke of 
Bedford, the patron of that corporation, had rendered 
himself extremely unpopular, partly by having nego- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 59 

ciated the peace of Paris, and partly by a political 
alliance with the Duke of Grafton, who had lately 
deserted from the party of the Earl of Chatham, and 
erecting his own standard, became prime minister. 

By way of retaliation on the former, it was deter- 
mined to attack him in what was deemed a vital part. 
Accordingly, on discovering that he was extremely 
obnoxious in his own borough, a successful attempt 
was made to liberate it from his influence. In this 
political struggle, the subject of the present memoir 
most heartily concurred ; and, as he never did any thing 
by halves, became one of the most active of the in- 
surgents. The contest took place September 4th, 
1769, on the election of mayor and bailiffs. The 
Duke, who was present, finding himself unable to pre- 
vail in his wish, (not to add to the number of freemen) 
requested of the corporation to nominate twenty of his 
own friends. When the names of those on the popular 
side were read, he restrained his indignation, until that 
of " John Horne" was pronounced, when his grace 
was pleased to express himself with great bitterness. 
On a division, this candidate was, however, elected by 
a majority of six, there being seventeen votes in his 
favor, and eleven against him. 



GO MEMOIRS OF 

Junius, with his accustomed bitterness, was pleased 
on this occasion, to denominate the nobleman in ques- 
tion, " the little tyrant of a little corporation :" and 
observed, " that, to make his late defeat more ridicul- 
ous, he had tried his whole strength against Mr. 
Houne, and was beaten on his own ground." 

Soon after this we find Mr. Horne engaged in an 
unpleasant dispute with Mr. Onslow. That gentle- 
man, while in opposition, had proved a warm and 
strenuous supporter of Mr. Wilkes : but having been 
afterwards admitted into favor by the court, he obtain- 
ed an office under the Grafton administration ; and 
was now, as usual, both considered and treated as a 
deserter from the popular cause. 

In the mean time, he entered into a controversy of 
a very disagreeable nature with that gentleman ; in 
the course of which, a charge of the most flagrant 
corruption was openly made by the one party, while 
it was repelled by the other, with the most pointed 
disavowal. This produced a civil action, brought by 
Mr. Onslow, against Mr. Horne, which was tried 
before Sir William Blackstone, at Kingston, April 6th, 
1770. The damages were laid at £10,000. At this 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 61 

ti'ial the plaintiff was nonsuited. Upon a motion to 
set aside the nonsuit, a new trial was granted, and, 
on this occasion, the Earl of Mansfield presided. — 
He was accused by Mr. HoRNE of charging the jury 
with great partiality, and hurrying the trial, for the 
purpose of packing the jury by talismen, before the 
special jury arrived. The jury gave a verdict for the 
plaintiff, with <£400 damages. 

Undaunted at the result, and doubtless rejoicing at 
an opportunity of contending with, and perhaps foiling 
this learned and eloquent judge, with his own weapons, 
Mr. Horne determined to appeal to a superior tribu- 
nal. Accordingly, on November 8th, 1770, a rule 
was moved for in the Court of Common Pleas, to 
show cause why the second verdict should not be set 
aside, and the 26th of the same month was the day 
appointed for an argument on the question before the 
twelve judges. Mr. Serjeant Glynn, on this occasion, 
restated his former reasons, with his usual ability, and 
insisted that the last jury had acted not only under 
misdirection on the part of the judge, but that the 
latter had delivered a charge to them in express 
violation of the received principles of law. As this 
was deemed a point of great importance, to prevent 



62 MEMOIRS OF 

a hasty decision, and give ample time for deliberation, 
final judgment was adjourned until next term. On 
the recurrence of that period, the judges, in April 
17th, 1771, finally and unanimously declared in favor 
of the defendant, in consequence of which the second 
verdict was set aside. 

This, of course, afforded no small exultation to Mr. 
Horne, who had directed and superintended the pro- 
ceedings ; as he had thus publicly proved, in the face 
of the whole nation, that the Lord Chief Justice, 
great and able as he assuredly was, could not now 
be considered as infallible ; and from this day forward, 
he took every opportunity to arraign the conduct, 
underrate the talents, and oppose the opinions of that 
celebrated man. 

Meanwhile the ministers still remained unpopular, 
and the county of Middlesex, which was deprived of 
the services of its favorite representative, was eager, on 
all occasions, to attack their principles and impeach 
their conduct. On turning to the proceedings of this 
period, it will be found that the vicar of New-Brent- 
ford was not idle. Incited by his usual enthusiasm, he 
not only acted a conspicuous part on every public oc- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 63 

casion, but for a time exercised a kind of paramount 
jurisdiction over all the political proceedings of that 
day. It was by his instigation that Mr. Beckford, 
Lord Mayor, in 1770, made a verbal reply to his 
majesty's answer to a remonstrance from the city of 
London ; and, that he drew up that reply as inscribed 
on the pedestal of Mr. Beckford's statute in Guildhall. 
He is regarded also, as the principal founder of the 
" society for supporting the Bill of Rights," of which 
he was an active member, and by his exertions, Bingley, 
a printer, who had been committed to prison by Lord 
Mansfield, for refusing to appear for the purpose of an- 
swering to interrogatories, was at length liberated. In 
the years 1770 and 1771, a quarrel took place between 
Wilkes and HoRNE, without incurring any just charge 
against his political integrity. "I found you," says 
he, in a letter addressed to Mr. Wilkes in 1771, after 
that gentleman had treated him with no common degree 
of ingratitude, "in the most helpless state — an outlaw; 
plunged in the deepest distress ; overwhelmed with debt 
and disgrace ; forsaken by all your friends, and shun- 
ned by every thing that called itself a gentleman ; at a 
time when every honest man, who could distinguish be- 
tween you and your cause, and who feared no danger, 
yet feared the ridicule attending a probable defeat." 






64 ME3I0IRS OF 

" Happily we succeeded, and I leave you by repeat- 
ed elections, the legal representative of Middlesex, an 
Alderman of London, and about £30,000 richer than 
when I first knew you : myself by many degrees poorer 
than I was before ; and I pretend to have been a 
little instrumental in all these changes of your situa- 
tion." 

At the period, and upon the occasion of this rupture, 
the celebrated controversy between John Horne and 
Junius took place, of which we shall have much to say 
hereafter. 

In 1771, he took his degree of A. M., although op- 
posed by some members, among whom were Mr. Paley 
and Mr. Bromley, afterwards Lord Mumford. It was 
to his exertions that the liberty of the press was vindi- 
cated in the persons of the printers who published the 
debates of the House of Commons, and the freedom of 
publication has been continued ever since. 

In 1773, he threw off his clerical garb, and propos- 
ed to resume his legal studies with a view to the pro- 
fession. But at this time an incident occurred which 
was of material importance, with respect to his future 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 65 

fortune. Mr. Tooke, of Purley, in Surrey, had inef- 
fectually opposed an inclosure bill, which was likely 
to be detrimental to his estate, and as this bill was 
passing rapidly through the Commons, he applied to 
HoRNE for advice. The following are the circum- 
stances of the case : — 

Mr. Wm. Tooke, a man of considerable fortune, with 
whom Mr. H. had been long intimate, and who, dur- 
ing his controversy with Mr. Wilkes, had borne pub- 
lic testimony to his honor and integrity, had purchased 
the estate of Purley, situate near Godstone, in the 
county of Surrey. This circumstance had given birth 
to many disputes with Mr. De Grey, a neighbouring 
gentleman of great influence, whose lands adjoined his, 
and who, as lord of the manor, claimed a paramount 
jurisdiction over certain parts of his newly acquired 
property. They had contended, in the courts of law, 
about fish-ponds and common rights ; and an attempt 
was now made, by means of an act of parliament, to 
settle the dispute forever. Accordingly, on Tuesday the 
10th of February, 1774, a bill was brought in by Sir 
Edward Astley, to enable Thomas De Grey, Esq., to 
inclose several common lands and fields in the coun- 
ties of Norfolk and Surrey. Mr. Alderman Saw- 

9 



86 MEMOIRS OF 

bridge immediately presented a petition from Wm. 
Tooke, Esq., requesting delay, on the ground that the 
usual notice had not been given to the inhabitants, and 
that the inclosures in question, so far as regarded the 
county of Surrey, would prove highly prejudicial both 
to them and himself. It was also added, that, to pass 
this bill, while the title to part of the lands was still in 
litigation, would be indecent and unprecedented, being 
highly detrimental to the interests of the petitioner and 
others. This request, however, was not complied 
with, for the bill was ordered to be read again, on an 
early day ; and an intention was plainly evinced of 
precipitating it through its various stages. 

It was in this dilemma that Mr. Tooke applied to 
Mr. Horne, and earnestly entreated him to interpose. 
Mr. H. suggested a remedy, which was to commence 
with a libel on the Speaker, which libel he would un- 
dertake to write. Accordingly he stated the case, 
accompanying the statement with some severe reflec- 
tions, and sent it to the Public Advertiser. When the 
paragraph was on the next day reported to the house 
and read, it occasioned great irritation, and a motion 
was made for calling the printer before the house. Mr. 
Horne, as the acknowledged writer, was called to the 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 6" 

bar ; he immediately obeyed the summons, and in a 
respectful manner confessed, that through hatred to 
oppression, and zeal to serve a friend, he had been 
urged beyond the bounds of discretion. After a long 
debate, he was remanded from the bar in custody of 
the Sergeant-at-arms, and upon being brought up some 
days after, he was, by the good offices of some friends, 
discharged upon paying his fees. His purpose was 
however answered — time was thus given for reconsider- 
ing the obnoxious bill, and the exceptionable clauses 
were either altered or withdrawn. 

It was thus, by the exercise of his talents, the sacri- 
fice of his personal liberty, and at the risk of the utmost 
vengeance which a House of Commons could inflict, 
that the subject of this work rendered himself eminently 
useful to Mr. Tooke ; and that gentleman, not content 
with the warmest expressions of gratitude and esteem, 
appears from this moment to have singled him out as 
the heir to the fortune, which he had preserved entire 
by his skill and intrepidity. 

Mr. HoRNE now retired once more to his peaceful 
retreat, in the vicinity of old Brentford, where he ap- 
plied himself assiduously to the study of the law, and 



6S MEMOIRS OF 

had already qualified himself for the bar, when the 
rumour of an approaching contest with the colonies 
discomposed his slumbers, suspended his labors, and, 
by rendering him once more a politician and a patriot, 
finally precluded all hopes of advancement in his new 
career. 

Mr. Horne was an early opponent of the war with 
America, which, at that period, occupied the attention 
and excited the alarms of the kingdom, and has the 
singular fortune to be the only man of any note, who 
was punished for his opposition, by the laws. When 
the news of the battle of Lexington arrived, the consti- 
tutional society voted £100 to the widows and children 
of the Americans who had fallen in it ; and the resolu- 
tion to this purpose, printed in the public papers, was 
signed by John Horne. In this resolution, the suf- 
ferers were denominated, " Englishmen who preferring 
death to slavery, were for that reason only, inhumanly 
murdered by the King's troops at Lexington." For 
this paragraph he was prosecuted, and tried at Guild- 
hall, in July 1777, on which occasion he pleaded his 
own cause. Notwithstanding the spirit and accuteness 
with which he defended himself, he was sentenced to 
twelve months imprisonment, and to pay a fine of £200. 



JOHN HORxNE TOOKE. 69 

From this trial, as reported by Mr. Gurney, we shall 
have occasion to quote in the progress of this work. 

In the course of the trial, he first appeared before the 
public as a grammatical critic ; and in 1778, he print- 
ed a letter to Mr. Dunning, which discussed the force 
and meaning of certain conjunctions and prepositions 
employed in his indictment, and which was the founda- 
tion of a large work, afterwards published. In the 
following year, he was disappointed in his expectation 
of being called to the bar ; for though he was emi- 
nently qualified for the profession to which he as- 
pired, he was rejected under the pretext of his being 
still a clergyman. 

On applying for a call, in 1779, instead of granting 
this request, with the usual facility, the benchers affect- 
ed to demur, and actually withheld their assent to the 
name of" John HoRNE," at the same time permitting 
all the other candidates to become barristers without the 
least objection. On being desired to explain, they 
expressed their doubt as to the eligibility of the gen- 
tleman in question. They could not urge any thing 
against his character, for it was respectable ; against 
his station, for it was creditable ; against his education. 



TO MEMOIRS OF 

for he had aspired to, and obtained the honors of his 
college ; or against his talents, as these were allowed 
to be eminent, and indeed constituted the sole disquali- 
fication. This last circumstance is said to have created 
a mean jealousy on the part of some practising lawyers, 
who were afraid of being eclipsed by a new competitor : 
but the chief opposition sprung from another quarter ; 
his politics were avowedly unfriendly to those in 
power, and he had already successfully opposed certain 
principles of law, as laid down by Lord Chief Justice 
Mansfield. To have repaired to the Court of King's 
Bench, not in the character of a raw and unfledged 
counsel, attending for his turn to make a motion of 
course ; but as an adult, and able practitioner, descend- 
ing into the forum, like Minerva from the head of 
Jupiter, armed and prepared for the combat, was too 
much to be borne by this celebrated and able, but 
.timid and resentful judge. 

This Mr. HoRNE felt as a very grievous disappoint- 
ment, and with a mind not a little exasperated, he de- 
voted himself to politics. Accordingly, in 1780, he 
published a pamphlet, entitled, " Facts," keenly re- 
viewing Lord North's administration, and containing 
two chapters on Finance, supplied by Dr. Price. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 71 

Soon after the termination of the American war, 
parliamentary reform became a popular topic ; and in 
1782, Horne published a letter to Mr. Dunning, (af- 
terwards Lord Ashburton,) under the title of " a letter 
on Parliamentary Reform, containing the sketch of a 
plan," of which we shall merely say, that he disapprov- 
ed of universal suffrage. Mr. Pitt was at this time a 
fellow advocate in the same cause. HoRNE now avow- 
ed himself the friend of Mr. Pitt, in opposition to Mr. 
Fox, whose coalition with Lord North he very much 
disapproved. In 1786, Mr. HoRNE having assumed 
the name of his friend Mr. Tooke, published his " Epca 
Pteroenta, or Diversions of Purley," so called from the 
country residence of his friend. Of this work, founded 
on his letter to Mr. Dunning, already mentioned, the 
most prominent subject of discussion was the deriva- 
tion of conjunctions and prepositions from verbs and 
nouns, whence they acquired a determinate meaning, 
often different from that which has been arbitrarily 
imposed upon them. This work attracted the notice 
of philologists, and gave to the author a high rank 
among writers on the philosophy of language. Poli- 
tics however diverted his attention from subjects of this 
nature, and in 1788, he published " two pair of por- 
traits," the figures in which were the two Pitts and the 



72 MEMOIRS 01 

two Foxs, of the past and present generations. The 
first name was strongly illuminated, and the latter 
thrown into a dark shade. He might probably, how- 
ever, at a later period, here adopted a different mode 
of colouring. In 1790 he opposed Mr. Fox and Lord 
Hood, at the election of representatives in parliament 
for Westminster ; and although professing himself un- 
connected with party, and determined neither to open 
a house nor to give away a single cockade, he polled 
near 1700 votes, without solicitation or corruption. 
On the occasion of his defeat, he presented a petition 
to the house, in support of which, he freely indulged 
himself in very bitter sarcastic invective. 

This petition was voted by the House of Commons, 
"frivolous and vexatious ;" for which reason a demand 
was made on the petitioner for certain damages which 
were supposed to have ensued, in consequence of his 
appeal to the House of Commons. This matter was at 
length referred to the courts below, and a trial of 
course took place in the King's Bench, which proved 
not a little memorable on account of the circumstances 
that attended it. 

Mr. Tooke, who acted on this as on other occa- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 73 

sions, without recurring to the aid of counsel, address- 
ed the jury in a long and able speech, in which he en- 
deavoured to impress on their minds, that there were 
only three efficient and necessary parties in the present 
cause : Mr. Fox, the plaintiff; himself, the defendant ; 
and themselves, the gentlemen of the jury. " The 
judge and the crier of the court," added he, " attend 
alike in their respective situations, and they are paid 
by us for their attendance — we pay them well : they 
are hired to be the assistants and reporters, but they 
are not, and they were never intended to be, the con- 
trollers of our conduct." This was not a trial, he 
observed, between Mr. Fox and him, about the trifling 
sum of two hundred pounds : that was by no means 
the ultimate object : a great and important national 
right was at stake : the last and only security which 
the full grown corruption and iniquity of the times 
had left to the people of the land for their lives, their 
liberties, and their fortunes ; this last and only security, 
" a real trial by a jury of our countrymen, is now 
attempted to be wrested from us." 

After entering into a variety of curious and interest- 
ing details relative to the two prevailing parties of the 
day, which a change of circumstances and of times 

10 



74 MEMOIRS OF 

precludes the necessity of dwelling on. Mr. TooKE 
complained of the crimes implied in the words, " fri- 
volous and vexatious," invented in 1789, the judgment 
and application of which were reserved for another 
tribunal: this action of debt he considered as a penalty 
for the commission of a new offence ; the act itself, he 
said was a spring gun, and spoke plain language, not to 
be misunderstood : — " Tread not near our boroughs, 
for woe to the man in future who shall be caught 
in our traps, our frivolous and vexatious traps." 

After a variety of pointed animadversions, the plain- 
tiff read his petition to the House of Commons, and 
then produced a very opposite passage from Black- 
stone's Commentaries on the trial by jury, concluding 
an able and elaborate speech in nearly the following 
words : — 

" Now, I desire you will reflect what proofs of the 
debt have been brought before you ? An examined 
copy of the journals of the House of Commons, and 
the Speaker's certificate, have been produced. But 
what are you to try and examine ? The Speaker's 
certificate? If the Speaker's certificate is sufficient to 
take away our property, why should not the Speaker's 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 7.5 

certificate be followed by an execution ? What occasion 
is there to call a jury together to try nothing ; and yet 
to make them solemnly swear to try well and truly ? 
I ask again, unless it was for the purpose of perjuring 
a jury, why might not the execution have immediately 
followed the Speaker's certificate as well as your ver- 
dict ? Why ! There was no reason upon earth but 
one — it was done to color the transaction. They are 
not yet quite ripe enough to strip from us at once (and 
let us know it at the time) our right to a trial by jury. 
But they have completely done it in effect. They 
have left us the jury, but taken away the trial ! 

" They have, by a subterfuge, taken away the trial, 

♦ 
which is the important part, and left us the jury, 

which, without trial, is a mere mockery. 

" As men then, as Englishmen, as Christians — or if 
you have any sense of any other tie or religion, you 
are compelled to pay a sacred regard to that oath 
which you have sworn, that you will well and truly 
try, and that your verdict shall only be in consequence 
of having well and truly tried the merits of the question. 
Where crime is the question, the jury must judge of 
the guilt charged, and of its extent ; and in actions for 



76 MEMOIRS OF 

property, they must judge whether any thing is really 
due, and to what amount; for if the jury are not to 
try and decide upon the whole merits of the question 
before them, no man in this country can be safe in 
life or property forever hereafter. Gentlemen, you 
are all strangers to me. You ought to be, and I be- 
lieve you to be twelve good and honest men ; and if 
you are so, and act and do your duty accordingly, I 
will venture to say that you will sleep this night more 
happily, and with more satisfaction, than ever you slept 
in your lives." 

Such an impression did this speech make on the jury, 
although it was, as the lawyers term it, in the very teeth 
of an act of parliament, that they could not agree in 
their decision while in court, but retired to consider of 
it ; and after an interval of four hours and twenty 
minutes, returned a verdict for the plaintiff. 

" Thus ended a cause," according to a periodical 
work of that time, " which will be equally memorable, 
on account of the circumstances that gave rise to, and 
those which accompanied it : a cause, in the course of 
which, the defendant, in the first common law court in 
the kingdom, and in the face of the whole world, ac- 



JOHN HORi\E TOOKE. 77 

cused a judge of the denial of justice ; the two great 
parties in the kingdom of a wretched struggle for the 
sordid and precarious enjoyment of power, place, and 
emolument ; and a House of Commons of England, 
of gross and flagrant corruption." 



CHAPTER IV. 



At the commencement of the revolution in France, 
a new order of things took place in England as well 
as in France. In France every member of the state 
was relaxed and palsied. In England they were per- 
haps attempted to be stretched to an unusual and unna- 
tural degree of tension ; in both "terror" soon became 
the order of the day. 

A number of societies at that period existed in Eng- 
land, the end and aim of which were professed to be 
Parliamentary Reform ; a cause, abetted, invigorated 
and supported by the masculine talents of the very 
gentleman who at that time held the reins of govern- 
ment, under the title of Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
These societies now became the objects of ministerial 
jealousy. Plots being reported to have been hatched 
by^them in order to subvert the executive government, 



SO MEMOIRS OF 

and extinguish the monarchy ; associations for the 
support of the state were entered into ; the habeas 
corpus bill was suspended, and the Tower was actually 
fortified ! In addition to this, warrants were issued 
with the same profusion as Lettres de Cachet had been 
in France, under the despotic sway of the House of 
Bourbon ; and Mr. Tooke, among others, was taken 
prisoner at his house at Wimbleton ; his papers were 
sealed up, and he himself committed a close prisoner. 

For delinquents of this description, the ordinary 
course of law was considered as too slow in its process ; 
and accordingly, on the 10th of September, 1794, a 
special commission of Oyer and Terminer was issued. 
On Thursday, October 2, it was opened at the Sessions 
House, Clerkenwell, in the presence of Sir James Eyre, 
Knight, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas ; 
Sir Archibald Macdonald, Knight, Chief Baron of the 
Court of Exchequer, &c. The speech of the former 
of these judges to the grand jury, on this occasion, has 
been severely stigmatised, as tending to renew the odi- 
ous and long since exploded doctrines of cumulative 
and constructive treasons, which criminate by inuendo, 
and would inflict punishments for implied guilt. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 81 

On Monday, October 6, the grand jury found a true 
bill against all the prisoners except one, (Mr. Thomas 
Lovett.) On the 13th, the solicitor to the treasury 
delivered to each of them a copy of the indictment, a 
list of the jurors impannelled by the sheriff, and of the 
witnesses to be produced on the part of the crown : on 
the 24th, they were removed by habeas corpus to the 
Tower : and on the 25th, they were arraigned before 
Lord Chief Justice Eyre, and severally pleaded not 
guilty to the indictment which charged them : — 

1st, With withdrawing their allegiance from the 
King. 

2d, "With endeavoring to excite rebellion and war 
against his majesty, in order to subvert and alter the 
legislature, and depose his said majesty. 

3d, With preparing and composing certain books, 
resolutions and instructions, and traitorously causing 
and procuring the same to be published. And 

4th, With maliciously and traitorously procuring 
and providing arms and offensive weapons, to wit, 
guns, muskets, pikes and axes, to levy and wage in- 

11 



82 MEMOIRS OF 

surrection and rebellion against our said lord the 
King, he. 

On Monday, November 17, the trial of Mr. Horne 
Tooke came on, and continued during that and the 
five following days. 

Soon after Mr. Tooke's being brought to the bar, 
he was allowed to sit near his counsel, in consequence 
of what he would not term an "indulgence," but a 
" right." When several of the jury wished to be ex- 
cused on account of ill health, this excuse was sup- 
ported by the prisoner, who addressed the bench as 
follows : — 

" I, for my part, hope that no infirm gentleman 
shall be taken upon this jury ; because, I had rather 
die where 1 stand, than consent that the jury and the 
judge should quit this place till the cause is gone 
through. I do therefore beg, that the jurors may be 
men in health ; that they may not suffer in doing their 
duty ; but that 1 may be the first victim. The law never 
intended that the crime of high treason, which ought 
to lie in the palm of your hand, should take up five 
days in the proof: therefore I beg your lordship will 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 83 

be so good as to let me die in this place, rather than 
that the whole criminal law and practice of this country 
should be destroyed." 

The Solicitor-general, in a speech of several hours, 
endeavored to maintain " the existence of a plot to 
subvert and alter the legislature, rule, and government 
of the kingdom, and to depose the King from his 
royal state, power, and government." A variety of 
papers were produced ; the books of the society for 
constitutional information were brought forward, and 
its secretary, and a number of other witnesses were 
examined at the bar; but nothing was adduced that 
exhibited even a shadow of either conspiracy or guilt ! 
On the contrary, the innocence of the prisoner became 
conspicuous, and he himself was so much at ease, not- 
withstanding a very bad state of health, that he after- 
wards declared in the presence of the narrator, " if the 
song which was brought forward on the trial of Mr. 
Hardy had been produced against him, he was deter- 
mined to have sang it; for," added he, " as there was 
no treason in the words, I should have left it to a jury 
of my countrymen to have declared, whether there was 
any in the tune." 



S4 MEMOIRS OF 

Mr. Erskine, in a very able and eloquent speech, 
asserted it to be the office of the jury to decide, whether 
the record, inseparable in its members, was true or false. 
" My whole argument has only been, and still is," said 
he, " that the intention against the King's life is the 
crime ; that its existence is matter of fact and not matter 
of law ; and that it must therefore be collected by you, 
gentlemen of the jury, instead of being made the ab- 
stract result of a legal proposition, from any fact which 
does not directly embrace and comprehend the inten- 
tion which constitutes the treason." 

The reply, on the part of the Attorney-general, was 
more remarkable for its length than its effect. One 
memorable circumstance however occurred, for that 
officer of the crown, who now presides in a much higher 
department, appears, on this occasion, to have surren- 
dered the long contested point about royal inviolability, 
as he asserted (according to the printed trial of John 
Horne Tooke, taken in short hand, by Joseph 
Gurney,) " that if the king were to take a different 
parliament than what the law and constitution of 
England had given him, he ought to lose his life; 
and 1 trust," added he " would be willing to lose his 
life rather than act contrary to his coronation oath." 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 85 

On this Mr. Tooke, with his usual readiness, ex- 
claimed, " What ! is the Attorney-general talking 
treason ? I should be unhappy to mistake you ; (ad- 
dressing himself to Sir John Scott,) Did you say the 
king ought to lose his life if he took any other parlia- 
ment ?" 

After the merits of the cause had been fairly, fully, 
and amply canvassed, Mr. Tooke called a number of 
respectable persons to testify to his character, both 
public and private, for a series of years ; and the jury, 
having withdrawn for only eight minutes, delivered in 
a verdict of not guilty by their foreman, to the evident 
satisfaction of the audience, as well as of the populace 
with which the adjoining streets were crowded. 

i 

As soon as a calm had ensued, Mr. Tooke address- 
ed himself to the court, and observed, " my mind, my 
lord, is much better formed to feel and to acknowledge 
kindness than to solicit it ; I desire to return my most 
sincere thanks to your lordship, and to the bench, for 
the conduct which you have held towards me, during 
the whole of this tedious trial. 

"Gentlemen of the jury, you have afforded a just 



86 MEMOIRS OF 

protection to my life ; I thank you for it ; and give me 
leave to tell you two things, which will increase your 
satisfaction as long as you live. We both shall have 
done good to our country. When I have told you 
two facts, one of which it was impossible I should tell 
you before, and the other it was unfit that I should tell 
you before, I am sure we shall never see such a trial 
as this again. My caution, and my virtue, for at this 
moment I will place it to myself, are the cause of those 
suspicions which dwelt upon his lordship's mind : his 
sagacity and integrity assisted him to clear many things 
up to you ; but the whole suspicion has arisen from 
this — I was anxious for the proper conduct of other 
men ; and if I could have foreseen, what I never could 

foresee, till the Attorney-general made his reply 

Gentlemen, this will help to direct your conduct 
through life ; and it will help other jurymen likewise to 
restrict this kind of guilt by inference. His lordship 
did see some part of it, and with great cand®r, he 
mentioned it to you. The fact stands thus : — being 
rarely present at these meetings, when my name ap- 
pears in the books, I was anxious for the safety of a 
very honest, but not a very able man. The secretary 
repeatedly brought to me papers, which the society 
had received, which were ordered for publication, and 



JOILN HORNE TOOKE. 87 

were afterwards put in the newspapers ; and when I 
saw a word which was capable of causing a prosecu- 
tion for a libel, I took the paper, and with my hand, 
struck out the exceptionable words, and inserted others 
which would avoid the danger of a prosecution. Upon 
this is built all that apprehension and suspicion of the 
direction, and conduct and originating of societies, 
with none of whom, nor with any of the individuals of 
whom, did I ever correspond, or communicate, at all. 
I know none of these country societies, except as can- 
didate for the city of Westminster. Every man who 
came to me, of every opinion whatever, if he asked my 
opinion, 1 corrected his works. A gentleman in court 
wrote a book against me — / corrected the book myself. 
I do not mention it to justify myself, because a jury of 
my country have justified me quickly, clearly, and 
nobly ; but, I mention it for the sake of that law upon 
which the blood, and the family, and the character of 
men depend. There never stood a man before your 
lordship more free from rational foundation of suspi- 
cion, upon this ground, than I stand before you. If 
you examine all the papers — if the Attorney-general 
will look at them again with this key, he will find it so. 
If the Solicitor-general had stated in his opening, what 
the Attorney. general did, when your lordship had 



§8 MEMOIRS OF 

properly closed my mouth, I should have explained it; 
but 1 obeyed your direction ; and with confidence 1 
trusted my life with that jury. If I had been permit- 
ted, I could have explained that which was thought 
the strongest evidence against me. There was one 
paper, where the word ' government' was struck out, 
and ' country' put in. ' Radical reform of the go- 
vernment,' might mean to pull up government by the 
roots ; ' radical reform of the country' could mean 
no such thing ; — no man will be charged with pulling 
the country up by the roots. The paper was forgot- 
ten; I recollected it when it was read. I had not 
foreseen the nature of the charges and inferences 
to be used against me, to make me a traitor ; it is 
impossible 1 could foresee them. To prevent the pro- 
secution of other persons for a libel, I have suffered 
a prosecution for high treason. I return your lordship 
thanks; I return my counsel thanks, my noble friend 
Mr. Erskine, who has been so nobly supported by Mr. 
Gibbs : — and, you, gentlemen of the jury, J return 
you my thanks : I am glad I have been prosecuted ; 
and I hope this will make the Attorney-general more 
cautious in future ; he said he would have no treason 
by construction, and there is no suspicion against me 
but by construction and inference." (Tooke was im- 
mediately discharged.) 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 89 

On the dissolution of the parliament in 1 796, Mr, 
Tooke offered himself once more as a candidate for 
Westminster. 

It might have been supposed, perhaps, that increas- 
ing debility, an advanced age, and the misfortunes 
arising out of a long imprisonment, had abated the 
spirit, if they had not altered the opinions of the subject 
of this work. This, however, was not the case, for we 
find him now apparently more eager than ever to ob* 
itain a seat in the House of Commons, 

Here, after having polled 2,819 votes, he was again 
defeated. — He is, however, chargeable with the incon- 
sistency of taking his seat in parliament as member 
for the decayed borough of Old Sarum, in 1801. 

Mr. Tooke, now in the 65th year of his age, had 
thus suddenly become a member of the legislature ; but 
it was at a time of life, and under circumstances not 
altogether consistent, for he had always been ambitious 
to represent some populous city, such as Westminster, 
and no one ever felt the force of ridicule, on this occa* 
sion, more than himself. His increasing infirmities, too, 
rendered a constant attendance difficult, if not impos* 

12 



90 MEMOIRS OF 

sible. In addition to this, Lord Temple, now Marquis 
of Buckingham, on the very first day that he took his 
seat, expressed his doubt as to his eligibility, and threat- 
ened an inquiry at no distant period. 

Notwithstanding this, the member for Old Sarum 
took an active part in the debates. On the third day 
(February 19th, 1801,) of his appearance, he support- 
ed the late Mr. Sturt in his motion relative to the 
Terrol expedition, on which occasion he conducted 
himself with equal temper and ability. " He was 
astonished," he said, " that ministers should resist an 
inquiry relative to so gross and palpable a failure, at 
the very time when the house appeared so ready to sit 
in judgment on the borough of Old Sarum, and the 
representative eligibility of an old priest!" He gaily 
inquired "what kind of contagious malady could be 
produced by his sitting among those who were pleased 
to call themselves the Commons of England ?" And 
asked in a jocular strain, " whether a quarantine of 
more than thirty years was not sufficient to guard 
against the infection of his original character ?" 

Shortly after, a motion was made " that the Speaker 
do issue a warrant to the clerk of the crown, to make 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 91 

out a new writ for the borough of Old Saruro, in the 
county of Wiltes, in the room of the Rev. John Horne 
Tooke, who is ineligible, being in priest's orders." 
This was resisted by that gentleman, in a short address, 
of which the following is the substance. Mr. Tooke 
prefaced his speech, by observing, " that he had but 
two struggles in his life, before the present, which were 
in any shape personal. The first was, when he applied 
for the degree of A. M., which, by the by," he added, 
•' a great dog might obtain, if made to articulate the 
words, probo aliter ;" and the second, when a doubting 
set of the benchers rejected his claim of admission to 
the bar, without any reference to law or precedent. 

In regard to the present question, how it may end, 
he knew not ; but, for the sake of others, he was de- 
sirous to maintain his rights ; but so far as he himself 
was concerned, no anxiety prevailed on the score of 
privileges — for he owed no money ! " He then animad- 
verted on the unparliamentary conduct of the com- 
mittee, in delegating their delegated powers to others, 
to examine old records : the result of the search was, 
that clerk (an epithet applied in those days to any per- 
son who could read,) signified a clergyman. He as- 
serted that the committee did not even understand the 



92 MEMOIRS OF 

Saxon characters ; and remarked, that, in quoting 
twenty-oiit cases, they had made no less than eleven 
mistakes. 

The next combated the doctrine, that he could not 
lay down his function as a priest, which doctrine, he 
thought, must appear futile, when it was recollected, 
that there were many canons that dwelt on the disposi- 
tion of priests ; " one of these states," added he, " that 
if any clergyman attempted to cast out devils unlaw- 
fully, such persons should be deposed. Now, for 
exarwple, Mr. Speaker, if I had attempted to cast the 
devil out of this house, 1 must have been deposed, and 
of course been deemed eligible. But, in this case, my 
only crime is my innocence ; my only guilt, that of not 
having scandalized my order. 1 feel myself, sir, exactly 
in the situation of the girl who applied for reception 
into the Magdalen. On being asked respecting the 
particulars of her misfortune, she answered, she was in- 
nocent as the child unborn ; the reply was, " This is 
a place only for the creatures of prostitution, you must 
go and qualify yourself before you can be admitted." 

After a few words from Mr. Fox and Mr. Erskine, 
in opposition to the motion, Mr. Addington, who had 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 93 

just been appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, most 
unexpectedly arose and moved the previous question, 
which put an end to discussion for the present. But 
on the 6th of May, the new premier brought in a bill 
" to remove all doubts relative to the eligibility of 
persons in holy orders to sit in the Commons' House 
of Parliament." 

The bill was passed, and carried up to the House of 
Lords in the usual manner. There it met with but 
little opposition, except from Lord Thurlow. That 
nobleman, now in the decline of life, and fast verging 
towards the grave, determined, on this occasion, to 
make up for his former enmity against a gentleman, 
whose talents and genius had at length acquired his 
esteem. He accordingly rose in his place, and stren- 
uously advocated his cause. He hoped that ministers 
were not actuated, on this occasion " by personal an- 
tipathies ;" and ridiculed the idea of " legislating 
against a single individual." His lordship, at the 
same time, contended, that he must be a man of no 
common abilities, who was thus about to be prescribed 
by a new and extraordinary statute ; but he hoped that 
the house, which he then addressed, would not give 
its countenance to a proceeding, equally unsanctioned 
by principle and by precedent. 



94 MEMOIRS OF 

Notwithstanding this, the bill was carried through 
all its stages, without any further opposition, and, in 
the course of a few days, received the royal assent. 

By that new law, Mr. TooKE was, however, per- 
mitted to retain his station until the dissolution, which 
ensued soon after. Being then disfranchised and pre- 
cluded from sitting in the House of Commons, by an 
express act of the legislature, which, without naming, 
was obviously aimed at the exclusion of him alone, he 
retired once more to a private station. This was in 
some measure rendered necessary by his increasing 
years and disabilities ; by his distaste for the situation 
he had occupied; and, above all, by his uniform attach- 
ment to a country life. 

Thenceforth, he confined himself almost entirely to 
his house and his gardens, and in the peaceful shades 
of Wimbleton, cultivated literature and friendship. 
There, too, by his attention to rural affairs, he seemed 
to soothe the approaches, and assuage the proxysms of 
disease. Life, for the first time, perhaps, since his 
rhildhood, now flowed on in one smooth undeviating 
current, varied only by occasional study, and the 
interchange of good offices with his neighbors and 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 95 

acquaintance. He still, however, retained all his 
faculties unimpaired. His masculine mind yet con- 
tinued to dictate to all who chose to consult him, and 
his responses were usually received, like those of the 
oracles of old, with implicit deference. The habitual 
influence exercised over those who associated with him, 
indicated his customary energy, and at once evinced 
a predominant genius, fitted by nature for command, 
and accustomed to be uniformly obeyed. 

At the general election, he published the following 
advertisement : — 

" TO THE ELECTORS OF WESTMINSTER. 

" Wimbledon, June 26, 1802. 
" Gentlemen — It has lately, for the first time, been 
" discovered, that something (I know not what) myste- 
" rious, miraculous and supernatural, was operated 
" upon me nearly half a century ago, in this protestant 
" country, which has divested me, at the close of my 
" life, of the common rights of a man, and a citizen. I 
" am thus prevented, by a miracle, from keeping my 
" word, and offering to you again my services in parlia- 
" ment. This, however, I regret the less, because, from 



96 MEMOIRS OF 

i 

" what I have seen, 1 am perfectly satisfied, that (consti- 
" tuted as that assembly at present is,) nothing short of 
" another miracle could possibly enable me to render 
" any service there. 

" At 66, when time and infirmity had already dis- 
" qualified me for any considerable exertion, exclu- 
" sion from that parliament, (of which Mr. Christopher 
" Atkinson was at that time an undisputed and welcome 
" member) by an act of the legislature, made upon the 
'« spur of the occasion, against an individual. I accept 
" as a singular compliment to the persevering endea- 
" vors of my past life, and, in times like these, as a most 
"honorable conclusion. At the same time, I acknow-. 
" ledge it to be an act of mercy in my old electioneering 
" comrade, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
"(Lord Sidmouth,) who brought in the bill; for if, 
" instead of this exclusion, he had proposed to hang 
" me immediately in the lobby, he, or any other Chan- 
" cellor of the Exchequer, would have been followed 
" by the same majority. 

" I return you, gentlemen, my sincere thanks for the 
" honorable support you afforded me at the two last 
" elections, which, under the circumstances, far exceed- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 97 

" ed my expectations, and for the noble support you 
" had prepared for me on the present occasion. I shall 
"continue, during the short remainder of my life, most 
" steadily attached to the ancient freedom of my coun- 
" try, (as it was practically enjoyed under those honest 
<? old gentlemen, George I. and II.) and your grateful 
u servant. 

" John Horne Tooke." 

Having published by subscription, a second edition 
in quarto, of his " Diversions of Purley," a second 
part, in quarto, appeared in 1805, in which he chiefly 
adverted to etymology, and to adjectives and parti- 
ciples, and their formation, intermixing satirical stric- 
tures upon some literary and political characters of 
note. From this time his bodily infirmities, occasioned 
by a disorder to which he had been long subject, in- 
creased, though he retained his faculties in full vigor, 
and continued to enjoy life. His temper was little af- 
fected by mental or physical evil, and " no one more 
strenuously maintained," says one of his biographers, 
" the balance of good in human existence." " His 
latter days," says the same writer, " were cheered by 
easy circumstances, and the attention of many friends, 
whom he entertained with great hospitality, and amus- 

13 



.98 MEMOIRS OF, &C. 

ed by his conversation, which was singularly pleasant 
and lively. With an unaltered brow he could be either 
facetious or sarcastic, and his features seldom disclosed 
what was passing within. His manners were polished, 
and his appearance was that of a gentleman of the old 
school." His life, at length, terminated by tedious 
and continued decay, in March, 1812, in the 77th 
year of his age. As he was never married, his pro- 
perty was bequeathed to his relatives. 

Of John Horne Tooke it may truly and emphati- 
cally be said, that on his demise there set the brightest 
sun that ever illumined the hemisphere of English 
literature. 






CHAPTER V. 

In perusing carefully the life of ToOKE, as thus 
collected and collated, can any one fail to be struck 
with the remarkable coincidence of every particular, 
with the peculiarities which are claimed for Junius. — 
He was an " Englishman of highly cultivated educa- 
tion, deeply versed in the language, laws, constitution, 
and history of his native country." Few men have 
ever attained a higher reputation among their cotem- 
poraries, for skill in language, variety of knowledge, 
high talents, and peculiar familiarity with the great 
constitutional questions which then agitated the coun- 
try. His means were, during that period, far above his 
wants, and his munificence to individuals, with his 
large contributions to the public cause, are upon re- 
cord. 

He had attained the age of 31, and having twice 
made the tour of the continent, might have reason to 



100 MEMOIRS OF 

speak, without presumption, of his own experience of 
the world. 

In the early part of 1767, he returned from the con- 
tinent, and resided in the vicinity of London during 
the years mentioned, devoting a very large portion of 
his time t<f politics, and writing for the Newspapers. 

He was impetuous in his disposition, but capable of, 
and exercising great self command — subject to strong 
political bias, and personal animosities — " possessed 
of a high independant spirit — honestly attached to the 
principles of the constitution, and fearless and indefa- 
tigable in maintaining them — that he was strict in his 
attention to public decorum — an avowed member of the 
established church, and though acquainted with English 
judicature, not a lawyer by profession. 

If the author of the preliminary essay had been dis- 
cussing the life and character of John Horne Tooke, 
instead of recapitulating the traits which had been dis- 
covered to belong to the unknown Junius, he could 
not have struck off a more correct general outline. 
This is strong in favor of our hypothesis, because, 
proceeding from a disinterested enquirer, without refer- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 101 

ence to any particular person, and in a discussion in 
which the name of Tooke was not suggested. 

This argument, upon the general character of 
Tooke, will be further strengthened by a reference 
to the manner in which the Quarterly Review, the 
most able and powerful opponent of the system which 
Mr. Tooke supported so zealously, speaks of his 
life and character, allowing something for the remains 
of old resentments ; something for their increased an- 
tipathy to the Whig party, which makes it rather pro- 
blematical, (with all due respect for the goodness of 
their intentions) whether they could deal impartially 
with the man, whom they pronounce the chief support 
of that party. 

It adds great weight to the general argument of 
probability, and records their testimony to his un- 
doubted capacity for the task. 

" In considering his political career, the most ma- 
terial circumstance, that, which is most necessary to 
keep steadily in view, in order to form a correct and 
candid estimate of his character, is, that he was from 
beginning to end, a man laboring under great, per- 



102 MEMOIRS OF 

petual, irremoveable, civil disabilities. He had beea 
unfortunate (we say so without fear of being misinter- 
preted) in his choice of a profession ; for it is a real 
misfortune to a man of an enterprising disposition, natus 
rebus agendis, to become a member of an order, in 
which propriety and duty enjoin a sparing and partial 
interference with the concerns of the world ; and in 
which, if propriety and duty are found too feeble re- 
straints, the law interposes with a strong arm, to curb 
profane activity and unprofessional exertions. What 
a man ought to do under such circumstances is obvious 
— but such is the weakness of human nature, that what 
he ought to do is, we are afraid, not what he is always 
likely to do — certainly the very reverse of what Mr. 
Tooke did do. In fact, his whole life seems to have 
been spent in an unavailing and ungraceful struggle to 
extricate himself from the restraints which his situation 
imposed upon him. He was forever beating himself 
against the bars of his cage ; and such is the power of 
passion over reason, that neither the exercise of his 
penetrating and vigorous understanding, nor the expe- 
rience of constant failures, were sufficient to prevent 
him from wasting his strength, in an idle endeavor to 
pass the magic circle which law and custom had drawn 
argund him. Hence, all his exertions wanted both 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 103 

dignity and effect ; and his extraordinary talents were 
productive of little true glory to himself, and scarcely 
of any benefit to the world. 

Mr. Tooke was born with an iron constitution of 
body and mind ; he was endowed with persevering- 
industry, armed with unshaken courage, and stimulated 
by a restless ambition. These qualities should carry 
their possessor very far in a free country ; but the bar- 
rier was insurmountable. Gifted with the talents of a 
great performer, he was compelled throughout to play 
inferior parts. As a politician, he was always below 
himself; always acting in subordination to his equals, 
or on a level with those whom nature and education 
had placed at an immeasurable distance beneath him. 
He began his career as an assistant in a struggle, from 
which the mock patriot Wilkes, derived all the glory 
and all the advantage ; and he ended it by dividing 
the credit of turbulent, unsuccessful, and unpopular 
resistance to sound principles, and lawful authority 
with Messrs. Hardy and Thelwell. He could not be 
a lawyer, therefore he resisted the law, and reviled 
those who administered it. He could not be a states- 
man, nay, not even a demagogue, and therefore he was 
content to become a factious partisan, a low agitator, 



104 ME3IOIRS OF 

to insult those whom he could not rival, and to dis- 
turb a country, in the government of which, he never 
could have a share. Disappointment and envy had 
taken possession of his whole soul, soured his temper, 
narrowed his views, and perverted his judgment- It 
was his habit to speak evil of dignities, to assail by 
ridicule or invective, all those persons and things, 
which, by the common feeling of the rest of the world, 
were marked out as objects of reverence and admiration. 
He professed, indeed, to admire the constitution of his 
country ; but it was the constitution as it was said to 
exist at some remote, and never defined period ; not 
the constitution such as it now is, under which, accord- 
ing to him, every species of corruption and injustice 
had grown up and flourished ; and he delighted to 
earp at that beneficent system of law, to which of all 
men living, he was the most deeply indebted. The 
mild spirit and lenient administration of English jus- 
tice were never more clearly exemplified than in the 
impunity of a man who was constantly treading upon 
the very verge of crimes, that aimed at nothing less 
than the entire ruin of the state ; and whose delight it 
was to insult the best feelings of the country at a time 
of universal danger, alarm, and irritation. The same 
temper of mind rendered him unjust to almost every 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 105 

species of excellence in his contemporaries. Among 
the objects of his particular and personal antipathy, 
are to be numbered nearly all the great men of his 
age and country. He hated Doctor Johnson, he 
hated Mr. Burke, he hated Lord Mansfield, he hated 
Mr. Pitt, he hated Mr. Fox, and he spoke of them 
without any of that respect or forbearance which great 
talents, and high station, and the esteem of the great- 
est part of the world, generally extort from less resolute 
or less acrimonious adversaries. 

The Ishmael of literature and politics, his hand was 
against every mans' hand, and every mans' hand was 
against him. Oderint dim metuant seems to have 
been his motto : and provided he could excite surprise 
by his paradoxes, and terror by his abuse, he cared 
little for public esteem, and looked to no more im- 
portant or more salutary effect. His writings and 
speeches are all composed in a confident accusatory 
tone. It is not enough for him to show that his adver- 
saries must be wrong, but he is equally determined to 
prove that they must be dishonest. Dissent from his 
opinion was not mere intellectual weakness, but moral 
guilt. No man ever more resolutely threw away the 
scabbard in every attack. He seems to have consi- 

14 



106 MEMOIRS OF 

dered the then order of things as one in which he 
could find no proper place ; and he therefore consol- 
ed himself by waging irreconcilable war against all 
those by whom it was upheld. He does not appear 
to have acted upon any particular system, or to have 
directed his efforts towards any particular objects. 

In fact, the occasions which allowed much active in- 
terference on his part, but seldom occurred. A popu- 
lar election, conducted with circumstances of extreme 
party violence, or a society formed to alter the consti- 
tution, or control the government, were his chief oppor- 
tunities for distinction, and upon these he seized with 
great eagerness, and availed himself of them with 
great ability. But these brilliant moments soon pass- 
ed away : the election was decided, or the society 
was suppressed, and he was condemned to pass through 
a long interval of quiet obscurity. 

One of his earliest, strongest, and most enduring 
feelings, was antipathy to the House of Commons. 
But like most other innovators, he seems to have 
thought that there was no harm in taking advantage 
of the present system so long as it lasted. Old Sarum, 
that standing insult to the theory of representation ; that 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 107 

bye-word among the reformers, had the singular honor 
of returning the Rev. Mr. Tooke to parliament, who 
took his seat (apparently) without any scruple as to 
the number or quality of his constituents ; nor does his 
dislike to the present order of things appear to have 
reached its utmost height, till the doors of the house 
had been finally barred against him by an act of the 
legislature. 

We are aware that the character we have been 
drawing, so far as we have hitherto proceeded in the 
delineation, is not particularly calculated to excite af- 
fection or respect ; yet we own that we are much 
more inclined to regard this waste of his talents, and 
this perversion of his feelings, with regret and compas- 
sion, than with severity and anger. There is nothing 
that has so unfavorable an effect upon the heart and 
the understanding ; nothing that so completely sours 
the milk of human kindness, as long disappointment, 
and immoveable restraint. By a step taken so early 
in life, that he was excusable at least if he did not at 
once perceive all its consequences; he was debarred 
from the fair exercise of those talents with which he 
was most highly gifted, and cut off from the attainment 
of those objects of which he was naturally most desi- 



108 MEMOIRS OP 

rous. We all know the vast share accident has in 
forming the greatest, the wisest, and most virtuous 
men ; and we shall not do justice to the character of 
Mr. TooKE, if we blame him for what he was, without 
considering what, under more propitious circumstances, 
he might have been. He was, as we have already had 
occasion to remark, the enemy of almost all the eminent 
men of his time. But if his fetters had been struck 
off, if he had been suffered to come down into the 
arena, and contend with them upon equal terms, a 
malignant and impotent hostility might have given 
place to manly emulation and generous rivalry. 

Let us not, however, be misunderstood as meaning 
to approve the conduct of those, who, having once 
engaged in a profession, in which the best faculties of 
man may be employed to the best purpose, instead of 
bending their minds to the accomplishment of its im- 
portant duties, waste their days in unbecoming endeav- 
ours to mix in struggles which they ought to shun, and 
in unavailing aspirations, after a greatness which they 
have renounced. We have only ventured to offer an 
imperfect excuse, arising from the general weakness of 
the human character, and to plead, as it were, in miti- 
gation of that heavy censure, which must, at any rate, 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 109 

fall upon talents idly wasted, or mischievously misap- 
plied. The most finished specimen of his compo- 
sition is probably to be found in the two or three 
letters written in answer to the attacks of Junius : and 
he had the honor, which, in those days, was deemed 
no inconsiderable one, of being the only knight that 
returned with his lance unbroken from a combat with 
that unknown, but terrible champion. If he wants 
the exquisite polish, and the brilliant invective of his 
adversary, that dexterous malignity which comes in 
with such effect to blacken a character by insinuation, 
after invective has exhausted its powers, and above all, 
that well sustained tone of austere dignity, which gives 
to Junius the air and authority of a great personage in 
disguise, he is superior to him in facility, vivacity, and 
that appearance of plainness and sincerity, which is of 
such importance in controversial writings. The great 
fault of Junius is a sort of stifness and appearance of 
labor. His compositions smell too much of the lamp. 
He wanted nothing to be a perfect master of his art, 
but the power of concealing it. Mr. Tooke's letters 
have the flow, unity, and simplicity which belong to 
writings struck off at a heat, and which depend for 
their effect, rather upon the general powers of the 



110 MEMOIRS OF 

writer, than upon great nicety and labor in the par- 
ticular instance. 

In justice to Junius, as a writer, we must add, that 
he was laboring under the disadvantages of a weak 
case. It is evident that he was early and deeply sen- 
sible of his own mistake ; and he was therefore glad to 
put an end to the contest as soon as possible, even at 
the price of leaving his adversary in possession of the 
field ; a humiliation to which he would not have sub- 
mitted, but from the conscientiousness of his having 
originally selected an unfavorable ground. 

In speaking of Mr. Tooke's intellectual character, 
we have hitherto omitted to notice one of its most 
striking features, the love of paradox ; a disposition 
which, though the natural companion of subtlety and 
ingenuity, was, we believe, never found combined with 
true greatness of mind. To add to the difficulty of a 
proposition by a quaint, unusual method of enunciat- 
ing it ; to display a vain dexterity in defence of an ac- 
knowledged error ; to dress up truth in a strange mas- 
querade garb, in hopes that somebody will mistake her 
for falsehood — these are frivolous, childish amusements, 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. Ill 

and indicative of an unsound, or ill -regulated under- 
standing. No man that possessed the reasoning 
power in its full perfection, was ever willing to waste it 
in drawing a stare from ignorance and vulgarity : On 
the contrary, those who have contributed most to en- 
large the bounds of human knowledge, by the disco- 
very of new and important truths, have almost always 
been anxious to place them in that point of view in 
which they would give the least possible alarm, and 
win their way to a general acceptance with the least 
possible opposition, from the common prejudices and 
feelings of the world. But truth and error, as such, 
were almost indifferent to Mr. ToOKE. He was more 
a sophist than a philosopher, and was always most 
inclined to maintain that proposition, whatever it 
might be, that afforded him the best opportunity of 
exhibiting to advantage his argumentative acuteness 
and skill. He was a sort of intellectual juggler ; and 
provided he could keep the multitude gaping at the 
dexterity with which he handled his cup and balls, he 
cared very little what further effect the spectacle might 
have upon their mind. 

Mr. Tooke was possessed of considerable learning, 
as indeed his writings sufficiently show. To other 



112 MEMOIRS OF 

more casual acquirements, he united a very extensive 
acquaintance with the Gothic dialects, of which he 
has so copiously and so judiciously availed himself in 
his etymological researches ; and it seems probable, 
that the leading ideas of his philosophical work, first 
presented themseh'es to his mind whilst he was pursuing 
this comparatively unfrequented track of literature. He 
was extremely well versed in the law ; a science which 
both in theory and practice, was particularly congenial 
to his mind, and which he had once studied with profes- 
sional accuracy, in the hope of being called to the bar. 
We are unable to state, with precision, what was the 
amount of his attainments in classical learning, but we 
apprehend he by no means possessed that accurate 
acquaintance with the literature of ancient Greece and 
Rome, which is necessary to constitute a great scholar 
in the ordinary acceptation of the term. He was 
familiar with all our best writers, most so with those of 
an early date. His knowledge of modern languages 
was considerable, and he was particularly well read in 
Italian authors. On the whole, exclusively of philo- 
sophy and politics, he would have passed for a very 
accomplished man. 

One of the taxes which men pay for being eminent. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 113 

is to have their private, as well as their public conduct, 
made the subject of criticism ; we shall therefore offer 
no apology for adding a few such remarks as our infor- 
mation enables us to supply upon that of Mr. ToOKE. 
In the essential particulars of truth, honor, and jus- 
tice, in all that, in a popular sense, forms the moral- 
ity of a gentleman ; he stood, we believe, unimpeach- 
ed — at least no charge against him for the violation of 
it was ever substantiated, although he lived for half a 
century exposed to the public eye, and beset by the 
vigilant hostility of active and powerful enemies. His 
great fault, as a private man, was a libertinism in his 
habits and discourse, which ill became his character, 
his profession, and latterly, his age. It may seem an 
uncharitable suspicion, but we are really afraid that the 
tendency of which we complain, was rather increased 
than checked by the profession, to which, however un- 
willingly, he belonged. He had a sort of spite at all 
its restraints. Many of them he never could throw 
off: but he was anxious to show that in licentiousness, 
at least, he could be a layman. 

In the ordinary intercourse of life, he was kind, 
friendly, and hospitable. We doubt whether his tem- 
per was naturally good ; but if it was not, he had 

15 



114 MEMOIRS OF 

a merit the more ; for he had so completely subdued 
it by care and self-control, as never to betray, under 
any provocation, the slightest mark of that irritability 
which often accompanies talent, and which gains so 
rapidly upon those who know not how to guard against 
its approaches. Indeed, the aspect under which he 
appeared in private, was by no means such as the stern 
cynicism and ferocious turbulence of his public conduct 
would have led one to expect ; and those, whose opi- 
nion of him has been formed exclusively upon his 
political character and his writings, will have some 
difficulty in believing that the curate of Brentford 
was one of the best bred gentlemen of the age. In 
this respect, he was a sort of phenomenon. He was 
born in a low station : at no period did he appear to 
have possessed any remarkable advantages for the 
study of good breeding : on the contrary, the greater 
part of his life was spent in constant intercourse with 
coarse, vulgar, and uneducated men. Yet his natural 
taste was so good, and he had profited so judiciously 
by whatever opportunities he enjoyed, that courts and 
high stations have seldom produced a better example 
of polite and elegant behaviour, than was exhibited by 
the associate of Messrs. Hardy and Thelwell. Indeed, 
his manner had almost every excellence that manner 






JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 115 

can display — grace, vivacity, frankness, dignity. Per- 
haps, indeed, in its outward forms, and in that which 
is purely conventional, his courtesy wore the air of the 
'vieille cour> and was rather more elaborate than is 
consistent with the practice of this lounging uncere- 
monious age, but it was never forced or constrained, 
and it sat not ungracefully upon an old man. 



CHAPTER VI. 

It has been remarked of some very eminent men, 
that either from bashfulness, or pride, or indifference, 
or want of ready command of their faculties, their 
conversation frequently disappointed the expectations 
which their character had raised. Mr. Tooke was 
not of that class. He never appeared to greater ad- 
vantage than in conversation. He was naturally of a 
social and convivial turn. His animal spirits were 
strong — the promptitude of his understanding was equal 
to its vigor, and he was by no means too proud to 
receive, with satisfaction, the small, but immediate re- 
ward of approbation and good will, which is always 
cheerfully paid to the display of agreeable qualities in 
society. A long, attentive, and acute observation of 
the world had furnished him with a vast store of infor- 
mation and remark, which he was always ready to 
communicate, but never desirous to obtrude upon his 
hearers. The events of his political life had brought 



118 MEMOIRS OF 

him into personal intercourse with many of the most 
considerable men of his time, and he was minutely ac- 
quainted with the history of them all. It is true, in- 
deed, as we have already had occasion to observe, that 
few of the number had the fortune to be the objects' 
of his regard or approbation ; and as candor was not 
a virtue he much affected, it was therefore necessary 
to receive his account of their actions and character 
with all imaginable caution and allowance. 

But if he was not a faithful portrait painter, he was 
at least an admirable caricaturist, which, for the pur- 
poses of mere entertainment, did quite as well : and 
it must be owned that his representations, though harsh 
and unfavorable, always bore a striking and amusing 
resemblance to the originals. Viewed alone, they 
would have conveyed a very erroneous idea ; but they 
were by no means without their use in correcting the 
impressions which had been made by more friendly, but 
equally unfaithful artists. . He possessed an inexhaus- 
tible fund of anecdotes, which he introduced with great 
skill, and related with neatneSs, grace, rapidity and 
pleasantry. He had a quick sense of the ridiculous, 
and was a great master of the whole art of raillery : 
a dangerous talent, though the exercise of it in his 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 119 

iiands, was always tempered by politeness and good 
humour. No man, we believe, ever provoked him by 
hostile attack, without having reason to repent his 
rashness. He was possessed of all the means that 
could make retort terrible ; — ready poignant wit, per- 
fect composure and self-command, boldness, confirmed 
by the habit of victory, in that species of combat, and 
a heartfelt bitterness, which, when he was once eman- 
cipated by the indiscretion of his adversary, from those 
restraints which good breeding imposed, poured itself 
forth in a torrent of keen, unsparing, irresistible in- 
vective. But these severe chastisements were but 
rarely inflicted ; never, we believe, except when pro- 
voked by some signal instance of folly or impertinence 
in his opponent. 

His fault, as a companion, was that love of paradox 
which we have already mentioned, and a tendency to 
disputation, which led him continually to argue for the 
mere sake of victory, and in evident contradiction to 
his own real opinion ; a practice quite insufferable 
when adopted, as it often is, by persons of ordinary 
understanding, and who only flatter themselves that 
they possess the acuteness with which Mr. TooKE 
was really endowed, and to which, we must own, that 



120 MEMOIRS OF 

even his liveliness, native ingenuity, and felicity of 
illustration, could never wholly reconcile us. 

He possessed a rich vein of humour, sometimes 
coarse, but always striking, comic, and original. His 
speeches afforded some good specimens of it to the 
public, and he indulged in it still more freely in pri- 
vate. Perhaps, indeed, it may be fairly objected to 
him, that his conversation was hardly ever quite 
serious ; and that, what with paradox, and what with 
irony, it was not easy to get at his true meaning. 
The truth seems to be, that he comforted himself for 
not having a larger share in the business of the world, 
by laughing at every body and every thing it contain- 
ed. His sceptical disposition probably kept his mind 
unsettled upon many important facts, as to which, the 
generality of men entertain more fixed opinions, and 
he was therefore ready to espouse either side with 
equal zeal and equal insincerity, just as accident or 
caprice inclined him at the moment. 

There were other subjects on which he was accus- 
tomed to speak more positively, but on which we are 
apt to suspect that his exoteric doctrines were very dif- 
ferent from those which he taught to aldermen, shoe- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 121 

makers, and other patriotic persons. On such occa- 
sions, he could not have been in earnest. He must 
have seen through the designs of those with whom he 
was acting — he must have loathed their vulgarity — he 
must have despised their folly. We are aware how 
severe a censure upon his honesty this opinion implies, 
but we really think that a fair estimate of the strength 
of his understanding can lead to no other conclusion. 

He was endowed with every species of courage, 
active and passive, personal and political. Even his 
adversaries allowed him this merit. We recollect, that, 
in the year 1794, at {he time of the State Trials, when 
it was falsely reported, that upon being committed to 
the Tower, his spirit had failed, and he had burst into 
tears ; Wilkes expressed great surprise, and said, ' I 
knew he was a knave, but I never thought him a 
coward.' It is only to be regretted that he found no 
better opportunities for the display of so valuable a 
quality, than in election riots, and trials for sedition 
and treason. 

In spite of labor and dissipation, his life was pro- 
tracted to a period which indicated an originally 
sound and vigorous frame. For the last twenty years, 

16 



122. MEMOIRS OF 

however, he was subject to several severe, distressing, 
and incurable infirmities; these he bore with a patience 
and firmness which it was impossible not to admire : 
to the very last he never suffered himself to be bent 
down by them, nor ever for one moment indulged in 
complaint, or gave way to despondency. In the inter- 
vals of pain, nay, even when actually suffering under 
it, he preserved a self-command, which enabled him to 
converse not only with spirit and vigor, but with all 
his accustomed cheerfulness and pleasantry; never 
making any demand upon the sympathy of his friends, 
or mentioning his own situation at all, except when 
occasionally, and by a very pardonable exercise of his 
sophistry, he amnsed himself in exalting its comforts, 
and explaining away its disadvantages ; displaying in 
this respect a manly spirit, and a practical philosophy, 
which, if they had been brought to bear upon his moral, 
as well as upon his physical condition, if they had 
been employed with as much effect in reconciling him 
to his political exclusion as to his bodily sufferings, 
might have produced, not the very imperfect character 
we have been attempting to delineate, in which the 
unfavorable traits bear so large a proportion to those 
of a nob\er and more benign cast, but the venerable 
portrait of a truly wise and virtuous man. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 123 

Such is the character given of Mr. Tooke by the 
editors of the Quarterly Review. This periodical has 
been long known as the ministerial paper. — The organ 
and mouth-piece of the high Tory party of England. 

It will be seen, upon examination, that every trait of 
character which is stated by them to belong peculiarly 
to Horne TooKE, is equally applicable to Junius, 
and form an identity of character between them. 

The skill of Junius in composition — of his power 
of sarcasm — his strong personalities — his vehemence 
against those whom he considered public delinquents 
— his confidence and assured reliance upon his own 
intellectual resources — his contempt of his opponents 
— of his hatred of certain great men — are all as clearly 
described of Horne Tooke, as though the writer had 
had the intention of drawing a perfect parallel. 

As a further corroboration of this general argument 
of probability, as drawn from the parallel characters of 
Tooke and Junius, we will produce the evidence of a 
person, who in this matter, at least, should be consider- 
ed a competent witness. This shall be the testimony 
of Sir Philip Francis, given on the trial of Mr. TOOKE, 



124 MEMOIRS OF 

for high treason, in the year 1794, and it is doubly im- 
portant, inasmuch as it goes totally to destroy Sir 
Philip Francis' claims, while, at the same time, it is 
" confirmation strong as holy writ," in favor of JoHl^ 
HORNE TOOKE. 



STATE TRIALS, Vol. 25, pages 371, 372. 

Philip Francis, Esq. (afterwards Sir Philip Francis, 

K. B.,) sworn Examined by Mr. Erskine — You 

are a member of the society called the Friends of the 
People ? I am. 

I believe you took the trouble to draw up the plan 
of reform to be submitted to that society ? I did. 

Have you that plan here ? Not in court. 

After you had prepared that plan of a reform in the 
House of Commons, and submitted it to the considera- 
tion of this voluntary society, of which we are both 
members, do you remember seeing Mr. Tooke I 

Yes. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 125 

How long ago ? In the course of the summer 
of 1793. 

Upon what occasion was it that you saw Mr. 
Tooke ? Though I had not the honor or the plea- 
sure of an intimacy with Mr. Tooke, I had known 
him long slightly, and even of that slight acquaintance, 
there were many intervals in which 1 never saw him. 
Upon the occasion of my having drawn up the plan, 
to which a former question alludes, I met Mr. Tooke 
by accident, in my road to town, (he lives near me in 
the country,) knowing, or believing him to be at all 
times a strenuous advocate for a reform of the House 
of Commons, and knowing him to have been one of the 
most learned men in the kingdom, particularly with 
respect to the points to which that plan had reference, 
namely, the antiquities, the history and constitution of 
this country, I thought I could not do a better thing 
for the object which I had in view, or any thing more 
expedient for my own instruction, than to ask the favor 
of him, which I did, to examine this plan particularly; 
to inform me if any of the references, or any of the 
authorities, or any of the laws and customs to which 
the plan alludes, were misstated, as likely they might 
be, by a person so little informed, or much less in- 



J2t> MEMOIRS OF 

formed upon these subjects ; that he would have the 
goodness to examine it attentively. I did not desire 
to discuss the principles of it with him at all, but 
merely that he would be so good as to examine it with 
respect to authorities and references, and upon this, to 
inform me if I had incorrectly stated any thiuj: : he 
said he would undertake to do that for me, and that 
he would make some observations upon it, in conse- 
quence of which, 1 called upon him three or four times 
at his house at Wimbledon, and I availed myself of 
the information he gave me, and corrected my plan in 
some particulars. 

Philip Francis, Esq. examined by Mr. Tooke. 

You have been asked whether you discussed with me 
the plan which you had proposed for a reform in parlia- 
ment. You answered, I think, you had not discussed 
it with me. Will your recollection lead you to say 
that we did not discuss that plan together ? I stated, 
that, in applying to Mr. Tooke for his assistance, it 
was not with a view to discuss the principle, for, upon 
that my mind was formed, but to receive information 
and correction, if 1 had misstated any thing respecting 
the authorities and references. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 127 

Lord Chief Justice Eyre. The question Mr. 

Horne Tooke puts to you now is, whether, in fact, 
in the course of your conversations, you did enter into 
any discussion of the plan with him ? It is very likely 
we might. 

Mr. Tooke — does your recollection carry you far 
enough to know whether, in the course of the summer 
of 1793, you visited me once, twice, thrice, or oftener ? 
I cannot be positive to the number of times ; it was 
convenient to me, in that part of the country, to call 
• upon Mr. Tooke ; it might be four or five times, 
perhaps, in the course of the summer or autumn. 

Might it not be five or six times ? It might. 



Now, upon this evidence, several arguments arise, 
which are of consequence to this investigation. 

The first and most obvious, is the unqualified admis- 
sion by Sir Philip Francis of Mr. Tooke's superior 
learning and ability. He speaks of him as a man 
universally acknowledged to be one of the most learn- 



128 MEMOIRS OF 

ed men in the kingdom in " the antiquities, history and 
constitution of the country," and with this opinion, 
admits he applied to him to revise, correct, and sug- 
gest alterations in the plan of parliamentary reform, 
which he (Sir Philip) had drawn up. There cannot, 
in my opinion, be a more decisive internal argument 
than this against Sir Philips' identity with Junius, 
nor a more strong presumptive evidence of the superior 
claims of Mr. Tooke. Is it not infinitely more pro- 
bable that Junius was the man applied to, to correct 
and modify a plan of reform, than that he should ask 
advice and assistance from another ? 

Twenty years before, Junius had submitted a plan 
for reform to the " supporters of the Bill of Rights," 
which plan coincides with the views of Mr. Tooke. 
Is it then within the probabilities of human action, 
that Sir Philip, upon the supposition that he was Junius, 
should have needed the assistance of one comparatively 
unknown to him, to modify a plan, which had for 
twenty years been the subject of his own labors and 
reflection ? And on the other hand, is it not a more 
rational and natural conclusion to prefer between these 
two men, that man to whom the application was made 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 129 

for assistance, who had established such a character 
for learning, as to be pronounced one of the ablest 
men in the kingdom ? 

Him, who has vindicated his claims to sufficient 
ability, to have been the writer twenty years before, to 
the man who comes after the lapse of twenty years, for 
assistance on that very subject f 

The next observation arises upon the admission of 
Sir Philip Francis, that Mr. Tooke's views of parlia- 
mentary reform coincided with his own. 

Now, as Mr. Taylor has very elaborately and inge- 
niously proved, that the opinions of Sir Philip and 
Junius coincided, I cannot but infer upon the axiom, 
that things that are equal to the same thing, are equal 
to one another. That this argument is as strong for 
Mr. Tooke as for Mr. Francis, and shall therefore, 
without further labor, take it henceforth for granted, 
(what I have found upon examination, and learn from 
Mr. Taylor and Sir Philip) that in the constitutional 
principles of Mr. TooKE and Jmius, there is no 
discrepancy. 



17 



CHAPTER VII. 

It seems hazardous to assert, but it is nevertheless 
true, that one of the circumstances which makes it 
difficult to prove that Horne was Junius, does (when 
added to other circumstances) strengthen the proba- 
bility. This circumstance is the fewness of his avowed 
productions, and the scantiness of our means of com- 
parison. His philological work, " The Diversions of 
Purley," and a few of his speeches, reported by others, 
and unauthentic iu form ; and his correspondence with 
Wilkes and Junius, form nearly the whole of his ac- 
knowledged writings. From grammatical discussions, 
and meager reports, little aid could be expected, on 
an analytical comparison of style ; especially styles so 
apparently different, as the free, open, and off-hand 
manner of Mr. Horne, and the studiously disguised 
and labored style of Junius. 

It is not probable that Junius was either an author 



132 MEMOIRS OF 

by profession, or in the habit of writing books or pam- 
phlets, to any extent. This holds true, both of anony- 
mous and acknowledged compositions ; for a number 
of publications, bearing the same extraordinary tone of 
mind, and cogency of argument, with or without the 
author's name, would infallibly have been traced to the 
same pen, and would each form another link in the 
chain of evidence, by which the author was to be reach- 
ed. Had Junius, therefore, been an author by habit, 
and had published openly, other, perhaps harmless 
works, without the same motive for mystery, he would 
have been discovered and identified beyond doubt. 

This argument directly impugns the claims of most 
of the candidates, whose preliminaries have hitherto 
been considered probable ; especially those of Burke, 
and Sir Philip Francis, while it strengthens those of 
Horne. From the few productions of Mr. Horne, 
which have survived the temporary interest of party 
politics, I shall produce some passages which favor his 
claim. 

In an anonymous pamphlet, which he published in 
1765, there is much of the personality of Junius; much of 
his bitter sarcasm and blackening insinuation, added to 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 133 

the same fierceness of invective. It is also remarkable, 
as evincing the same dislike to the Scotch, which Junius 
afterwards so singularly avowed. It is directed against 
the earls Bute and Mansfield, and dedicated " to the 
right honorable, truly noble, and truly Scottish lords, 
Mortimer and Jefi'eries ;" — entitled, " The petition of 
an Knglishman ;" with which are given a copper-plate 
of the Croix of St. Pillory, and a true and accurate 
plan of a part of Kew Gardens. Thus boldly he 
addresses the" King. — "And since, by you, the Eng- 
lish name is now melted down to Briton, and liberty 
wrested from our hands, it is with great propriety, 
trusted to the keeping of Scotch justices and court 
boroughs. Leave us not naked of every honorable 
distinction. Give us this badge, in lieu of what you 
have taken from us, that we afford a striking proof to 
some future Montesquieu, how true it is, that the spirit 
of liberty may survive the constitution." 

" For your lordships, (Bute and Mansfield) no doubt 
have somewhere read, that truth, if it is a virtue, is a 
virtue like the plague ; having too often the quality of 
making us generally shunned and avoided. Wisely, 
therefore, do your lordships, to prevent spreading the 



134 MEMOIRS OF 

infection, send it to perform quarantine in the King's 
Bench." 

" You have a precedent in Cade, and for the justifi- 
cation of any infamous and dirty business, it is at pre- 
sent sufficient, that there is a precedent ; even I, my 
countrymen, who now address myself to you : I, who 
am at present blessed with peace, with happiness and 
independence, a fair character, and an easy fortune, 
am, at this moment, forfeiting them all.' 5 

This pamphlet had the singular good fortune to es- 
cape prosecution as a libel, though some parts of it 
are quite as severe and offensive as Junius' subsequent 
letter to the king. 

In the next year, (1766,) Mr. Horne wrote that 
notorious letter to Mr. Wilkes — the indiscretion of 
which, with Mr. Wilkes' unpardonable breach of faith, 
afterwards brought so many reproaches upon him. 
One of the paragraphs has the very manner of Junius, 
and another shows the singular readiness with which, 
even at this early period, Mr. Horne became ac- 
quainted with the secrets of government. I quote 
them both : — 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 135 

" You are now entering into a correspondence with 
a parson — and I am greatly apprehensive lest that 
title should disgust ; but give me leave to assure you, 
I am not ordained a hypocrite. It is true, I have suffer- 
ed the infectious hand of a Bishop to be waved over 
me, whose imposition, like the Sop given to Judas, is 
only a signal for the devil to enter." 

"I have this moment seen a letter from England, 
that tells me that Fitzherbert has sent you a power to 
draw on him for the amouut of <£1000 a-year." 

The last extract is singular, for it shows how accu- 
rate was Mr. Horne's intelligence, at that distance, of 
circumstances which were absolute mysterious to the 
uninitiated at home. This negociation of Mr. Wilkes 
with the Rockingham administration, was true in all the 
particulars, and the sum of .£1000 a-year was raised 
by contribution from the salaries of those in place. 
This fact also accords with the extraordinary means 
of information afterwards possessed by Junius. In 
addition to his after connection with the leading politi- 
cians of the day, a clue to Mr. Hornes' means of 
court information, may be discovered in the follow- 



136 MEMOIRS OP 

ing circumstance, narrated by Mr. Stephens, Vol. 2, 
page 229 : — 

" This election, during which the poll continued 
open for a fortnight, cost the other candidates a very 
large sum of money. And it proved also expensive 
on the part of Mr. Horne Tooke, who spent nearly 
a thousand pounds on the occasion ; however, the 
charge was not borne by him, for he has assured me 
frequently, that the money had been previously pre- 
sented to him by a man of considerable rank ; who, as 
well as his family, was apparently well received at court, 
where he proved a constant attendant." 

Who this nobleman was we are not informed, but it 
is a fair inference, that he was (for he well might have 
been) a source of court information to Mr. HoRNE. 

Mr. Horne was, in the year 1769, as I have men- 
tioned in his memoirs, involved in a legal controversy 
with Mr. Onslow, in consequence of the following 
letter, which we insert, for its extraordinary resembl- 
ance to Jimius* 






JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 137 

Stephens, Vol. 1, p. 128. 

TO THE RIGHT HON* GEORGE ONSLOW, 

Good Sir, 

" If, with another innocent man, Lord Holland, you 
too, were ambitious to add to the list of Mr. Walpole's 
right honorable authors, you might, like him, have 
exposed yourself with more temper, and have called 
names in better English* 

" I should be sorry to libel you by mistaking your 
meaning, but the strange manner of wording your first 
sentence leaves me at a loss to know whether you in- 
tend that my letter, or your own character ' is a 

gross and infamous lie from beginning to end.' 

You may save yourself the expense of taking 'the 
best advice in the law.' Depend upon it, you can 
never ' hope to make an example of the author, when 
the publisher is unable or unwilling to give up his 
name.' And you need not wait for a jury to deter- 
mine, that ' robbing a man is certainly a robbery.' 
But you should have considered, some months since, 

18 



138 MEMOIRS OF 

that it is the same thing whether the man be guilty or 
innocent ; and whether he be robbed of his reputation 
or of his seat in parliament. 

" In the Public Advertiser of Friday, July 14, there 
is a letter from you as well as to you. If that is the 
scurrility you speak of, I agree with you, that it has 
been treated ivith the contempt it deserves by all the 
world ; but how you can say that it has passed with 
impunity, I own I cannot conceive, unless, indeed, you 
are of opinion with those hardened criminals who think 
that, because there is no corporal sufferance in it, the 
being gibbetted in chains, and exposed as a spectacle, 
makes no part of their punishment. 

" The letter written by you to Mr. Wilkes, tends 
more « to wound your character and honor' than any 
other, and yet you pass it over in silence. But you 
shall, if you please, prove to the world, that those who 
have neither character nor honor, may still be wound- 
ed in a very tender part their interest. And I 

believe Lord Hillsborough is too noble to suffer any 
lord of the treasury to prostitute his name and commis- 
sion to bargains like that I have exposed ; but will, if 
he continues to preside at the board of trade, resolute- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 139 

ly insist either on such lord's full justification or dis- 
mission. Hinc ilia Lachrymce. 

"You 'defy the whole world to prove a single 
word in my letter to be true ; or that the whole is not 
a barefaced, positive, and entire lie.' The language 
of the last part of this sentence is such as 1 can make 
no use of, and therefore I return it back on you to 
whom it belongs : the defiance in the first part I accept 
and will disprove what you say. 

" My letter can only be false in one particular, for 
it contains only one affirmation, namely, that I heard 
the story I relate from very good authority. It then 
concludes with a question to you of — who is this lord 
of the treasury that so abhors corruption ? Which 
question, since you have answered, I too will gratify 
you, and, in return for yours, do hereby direct the 
printer to give you my name ; which, humble as it is, 
1 should not consent to exchange with you in any 
other manner. 

" Now, sir, I do again affirm, that I heard the story 
from the best authority : and that it is not my invention, 
your own letter is a proof, for I might have heard it 



140 MEMOIRS OF 

either from Mrs. Burns, or from Mr. Pownall, or Mr. 
Bradshaw, but 1 heard it from better authority. 1 go 
further, I do still believe the story, as I related it, to 
be true ; nor has any thing you have said convinced 
me to the contrary. I do not mean to charge you or 
any one ; but since you have condescended to answer 
my former question, be kind enough to explain what 
follows : — 

" Mr. Pownall is secretary to the board of trade, 
Mr. Bradshaw is secretary to the treasury. Why did 
these secretaries come together to you ? Were they sent 
by their principals or not ? Who first detected this very 
scandalous, though very common traffic ? Has not 
Lord Hillsborough that honor ? And is not your exag- 
gerated ' abhorrence of corruption, your astonishment, 
and indeed horror at this shocking scene of villiany,' 
vastly heightened by the calm, and therefore unsuspect- 
ed disapprobation of his lordship ; who does not seem 
to think with you, that every whore should be hanged 
alive ; but only that they should be turned out of 
honest company. 

" How came you so instantly to entertain hopes of 
getting the money restored to Mrs. Burns ? when you 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 141 

declared, that • till that morning;, you never in your 
life heard a single word of either the office itself, nor 
of any of the parties concerned.' Jonathan Wild used 
to return such answers, because he knew the theft was 
committed by some of his own gang. 

si You pretend to have given to the public ' all the 
knowledge you have of this detestable fraud.' I can- 
not believe it, because I find nothing in your letter on 
which to ground your hopes of restoring the money to 
Mrs. Burns ; and, especially, because in three weeks 
after this letter, i. e. from June 27, to July 18, you 
have only discovered, that ' Mrs. Smith appears to be 
principally concerned in this detestable fraud, the 
money being, it seems, for her use.' Sir, do you not 
know whose Mrs. Smith is ? And are you not acquaint- 
ed with that gentleman ? Have you caused Mrs. Smith, 
or any one else, to be taken into custody ? Have you 
taken ' the best advice in the law, and are you deter- 
mined to see if a jury will not do you and the public 
justice' for this detestable fraud ? Or is there yet left 
one crime which you abhor more than corruption ; 
and for which you reserve all your indignation ? But 
why this anger ? He that is innocent can easily prove 
himself to be so ; and should be thankful to those who 



142 MEMOIRS OF 

gave him the opportunity, by making a story public. 
Malicious and false slander never acts in this open 
manner ; but seeks the covert, and cautiously conceals 
itself from the party maligned, in order to prevent a 
justification. 

" If any persons have done your character an injury 
by a charge of corruption, they are most guilty who so 
thoroughly believed you capable of that crime, as to 
pay a large sum of money on the supposition : (an in- 
dignity which I protest I would not have offered to you, 
though you had negotiated the matter, and given the 
promise yourself.) And yet I do not find you at all 
angry with them when they tell you their opinion of 
you without scruple. On the contrary, you pity Mrs. 
Burns in the kindest manner, which shows plainly that 
your honor is not like Caesar's wife. Nay, you seem 
almost to doubt, whether you * might beg the favor of 
Mr. Burns to meet you at your house in Curzon-street;' 
that is, you humbly solicit Mr. Burns to do you the 
favor of accepting your assistance in the recovery of 
his money. 

" Archbishop Laud thought to clear himself to pos- 
terity, from all aspersions relative to popery, by in- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 143 

serting in his Dairy his refusal of a cardinal's hat, not 
perceiving the disgrace indelibly fixed on him by the 
offer. ' Mr. Burns has had the strongest recommen- 
dations from persons of undoubted veracity, and I 
believe, on all accounts, will be found to be perfectly 
capable and worthy of the employment.' The letter 
from Mrs. Burns to you does, by no means, declare her 

to be an idiot. Colonel (whom you forbear to 

mention,) is a man of sense, and well acquainted with 
the world. It is strange they should all three believe 
you capable of this crime, which, ' of all others, you 
must hold in abhorrence.' 

"Mr. Pownall, Mr. Bradshaw, and their principals, 
are supposed to know something of men and things, 
and therefore, I conclude they did not believe you con- 
cerned in this business : though I wonder much, that, 
not believing it, both the secretaries should wait on you 
so seriously about it ; but perhaps they may think that 
when honor and justice are not the rules of men's 
actions, there is nothing incredible that may be for 
their advantage. 

" But, sir, whatever may be their sentiments of you, 
I must entreat you to entertain no resentment to me. 



144 MEMOIRS OF 

My opinion of your character would never suffer me fo 
doubt your innocence. If, indeed, the charge of cor- 
ruption had been brought against a low and ignorant 
debauchee, who, without the gratifications and enjoy- 
ments of a gentleman, had wasted a noble patrimony 
amongst the lowest prostitutes ; whose necessities had 
driven him to hawk about a reversion on the moderate 
terms of one thousand for two hundred ; whose despe- 
rate situation had made him renounce his principles 
and desert his friends, those principles and those friends 
to which he stood indebted for his chief support ; who, 
for a paltry consideration, had stabbed a dear old 
friend, and violated the sacred rights of that grateful 
country that continued to the son the reward of his 
father's services. If the charge had been brought 
against such an one, more fit to receive the public 
charity than to be trusted with the disposal and manage- 
ment of the public money, small proof would have been 
sufficient ; and, instead of considering it as a crime the 
most to be abhorred, we might have suffered corrup- 
tion to pass amongst the virtues of such a man. 

" But yours, sir, is a very different character and 

■ 

situation, in the clear and unincumbered possession of 
that paternal estate, with which your ancestors have 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 145 

long been respectable, with a pension of three thou- 
sand, and a place of one thousand a-year ; with the 

certain prospect of Lord O 's large fortune, which 

your prudence will not anticipate ; grateful to your 
country, faithful to your connections, and firm to your 
principles, it ought to be as difficult to convict you of 
corruption as a cardinal of fornication ; for which 
last purpose, by the canon law, no less than seventy- 
two eye witnesses are necessary. 

" Thus, sir, you see how far I am from casting any 
reflection on your integrity ; however, if, notwith- 
standing all 1 have said, you are still resolved to try 
the determination of a jury, take one piece of advice 
from me — do not think of prosecuting me for an 
insinuation: alter your charge before it comes upon 
record, to prevent its being done afterwards ; for, 
though Lord Mansfield did not know the difference 
between the words when he substituted the one for the 
other, we all know very well now that it is the tenor t 
and not the purport, that must convict for a libel, which 
indeed, almost every student in the law knew before." 

The event of the trial which ensued, has been here- 
tofore mentioned. Junius appears to have taken great 

19 



140 MEMOIRS OF 

interest in this trial ; and in a private letter addressed 
to Woodfall, dated Wednesday night, August 16, 1769, 
he expresses himself very contemptuously of Onslow — 
and adds, " Depend upon it, he will get nothing but 
shame by contending with Mr. Horne." 

The style and spirit of the following letter to David 
Garrick, November 10, 1771", is not only in the style 
of, but a fac simile of the true character of the Rev- 
John Horne. 

"November 10, 1771. 
" 1 am very exactly informed of your impertinent 
" inquiries, and of the information you so busily sent 
" to Richmond, and with what triumph and exultation 
" it was received. I knew every particular of it the 
" next day. Now mark me, vagabond — keep to your 
" pantomimes, or be assured you shall hear of it. 
" Meddle no more, thou busy informer ! It is in my 
" power to make you curse the hour in which you 
" dared to interfere with 

Junius." 

In the year 1771, Mr. Horne became involved in 
his famous quarrel with Wilkes ; which quarrel pro- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 147 

duced the controversy with Junius, which is mainly 
relied on to disprove the identity of the two characters. 
I shall not, in this place, enter into the merits of that 
correspondence, farther than to compare the language 
of Horne to Wilkes, with some of the writings of 
Junius. In another chapter, I shall explain the reasons 
upon which I have been convinced that the pretended 
controversy between Horne and Junius, in no way 
weakens the argument in favor of their identity, but, 
on the contrary, strengthens the probability. 

" I did not, indeed, foresee that any member of the 
House of Commons would move for leave to bring 
in a bill to take away the right of appeal from the 
people, in cases of murder : but I did foresee, that 
Lord Mansfield would make such a motion, and such 
a bill unnecessary; and that he would, by studied de- 
lays and difficulties, most effectually take away the 
remedy of appeal, by showing us that the most emi- 
nent counsel at the bar, are not able to proceed in 
such a course, as to bring it to a trial. And I sup- 
posed that he would, as he has done, so protract the 
matter, by shifting his difficulties and his doubts, that 
either the proceedings on the appeal should be drop- 
ped, by the enormity of the expense, or the obstinate 



148 MEMOIRS OF 

virtue of the poor appellant have time to be cooled 
and corrupted." 

" I expected also, to show that Lord Mansfield, who 
is so dexterous at removing difficulties, and shortening 
the way to a conviction for libel, according to the 
modern method of prosecution, was dexterous in finding 
out, or creating obstacles to a trial, in the ancient 
mode of appeal for murder." 

" However, you must do something for your credits' 
sake — at least be witty — at least entertain the public — 
scraps of verses will not altogether answer the purpose. 
Ah me! is no argument ; quotations are not proofs. If 
you will quote an incomparable poet, you should take 
some of his incomparable poetry. With such a choice 
of beauties before you, to select the passages with 
which you have lately patched your prose, convinces 
me that no friend can escape you, and that living or 
dead, it is your study and endeavor to show, if you 
can, their weak sides to the public." 

" I have been, with others, struggling to make it 
your interest to be honest, and founded all my hopes, 
not on your principle, but common sense." 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 149 

Stephens, Vol. I, p. 240, 241. 

" But the people must owe it to themselves, nor 
ought they to receive the restoration of their rights as 
a favor from any set of men, minister, or king. The 
moment they accept it as a grant, a favor, an act of 
grace, the people have not the prospect of a right left. 
They will, from that time, become like the mere posses- 
sors of an estate without a title, and of which they may 
be dispossessed at pleasure. If the people are not 
powerful enough to make a bad administration, or a 
bad king, do them justice, they will not often have a 
good one. Would to God the time were come, 
which I am afraid is very distant, beyond the period 
of my life, when an honest man could not be in oppo- 
sition ! I declare I should rejoice to find the patron- 
age of a minister, in the smallest degree, my honor and 
interest. I never have pretended to any more than to 
prefer the former to the latter. But it is not upon me 
alone that you have poured forth your abuse, but upon 
every man of honor, who has deserved well of the 
public ; and if you were permitted to proceed, without 
interruption, there would shortly not be found one 
honest man who would not shudder to deserve well of 
the people." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

In the year 1777, Mr. Horne was tried before 
Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, for a libel — as narrated 
in the account # of his life. This libel was the publica- 
tion in the Newspaper, (July 1775) of an advertisement 
to which his name was subscribed, in which he stig- 
matized the killing of Americans by the King's troops, 
at Lexington, in the April preceding, an inhuman 
murder. The advertisement is a curious one, and is 
therefore inserted here, as a specimen of the spirit 
which animated some of the English brethren in our 
behalf, at that period. 

" Kings-Arms, Cornhill, June 7, 1775. 
" At a special meeting this day of several members 
" of the constitutional society, during an adjournment, 
" a gentleman proposed that a subscription should be 
"immediatety entered into, (by such of the members 
" present, as might approve the purpose,) for raising 



MEMOIRS OF JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 151 

u the sum of £100, to be applied to the relief of the 
" widows, orphans, and aged parents of our beloved 
" American fellow-subjects, who, faithful to the char- 
" acter of Englishmen, preferring death to slavery, 
" were, for that resaon only, inhumanly murdered by 
" the King's troops, at or near Lexington and Concord, 
" in the Province of Massachusetts, on the 19th of 
" last April ; which sum being immediately collected, 
" it was thereupon resolved, that Mr. HoRNE do pay 
" to-morrow into the hands of Messrs. Brownes and 
" Collison, on the account of Dr. Franklin, the said 
" sum of £100 ; and that Dr. Franklin be requested 
" to apply the same to the above mentioned purposes. 

John Horne." 

For this publication he was, after the lapse of more 
than two years, and when the quarrel between the 
parent state and the colonies had proceeded to regular 
warfare, prosecuted, and brought to trial by the At- 
torney-general, (Thurlow) upon an information ex 
officio. From this trial, and which was brought on 
(in July 1777) before Earl Mansfield, and from Mr. 
Horne's speeches in defence, and after conviction, 
we shall make several extracts, and shall endeavor to 
strengthen our argument, by showing the similarity in 



152 MEMOIRS OF 

spirit, and sometimes in manner and expression, to 
Junius. 

In making these comparisons, perfect identity must 
not be expected. The writings of Junius were at this 
time too popular and well remembered to allow their 
writer (situated in so dangerous a predicament) to gain 
any very obvious imitation, or copy, or presumptive 
evidence of any nature that could lead immediately to 
his detection ; or would be likely to excite a suspicion 
that might be fatal in its consequences. 

Something, too, must be allowed to the natural infe- 
riority in polish of a discourse, delivered extemporane- 
ously before a crowded auditory — and the regular me- 
thodical and labored productions of the study ; and 
much more to the condensed and disguised form which 
this mystery compelled the author to use, and that from 
his own confession. 

With these necessary allowances, the following is in 
the very style and spirit of Junius : — 

In the opening of the trial, Mr. HoRNE made an 
objection to the right claimed by the Attorney-general, 






JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 153 

of replying, notwithstanding that no witnesses had 
been called by the defendant. This was overruled by 
Lord Mansfield, after some altercation between him 
and the defendant. For this he suffered severely 
throughout the trial, from the sarcastic attacks of Mr. 
Horne. " To my great disadvantage and sorrow, 
your lordship interfered hastily, and saved Mr. Attor- 
ney-general the trouble of vindicating his claim." 
Your lordship saved him from the embarrassment he 
would then have found, and which I am confident he 
will now find, to produce one single argument of 
reason or justice, on behalf of his claim ; and this your 
lordship did, by an absolute overbearing of the objec- 
tion, without even permitting an argument." 

" This is only a repetition of what happened before, 
if your lordship will thus do the business of the Attor- 
ney-general for him." 

Lord Mansfield. — " You will have a remedy." 

Mr. Horne—" Oh, my lord, I have already suffered 
under your lordship's directing me to remedies. The 
most evil of all poisoners, are those who poison our 
remedies. Has your lordship forgotten ? I am sure 

20 









154 MEMOIRS OF 

you have not forgotten, that I have once before, in my 
life, had the honor to be tried before your lordship for 
a pretended libel. It was the most scandalous trial 
that ever came before a court. Your lordship cannot 

forget the particulars of that trial."** " We came 

to trial before your lordship, and I do remember some 
very strong cases (which, indeed, I intended to have 
published) of your lordship's practice in that trial." 

"I have never complained of the practices used 
against me on that trial, nor of the mistakes (to speak 
gently) which your lordship made." 

" First, your lordship interferes to save Mr. Attor- 
ney-general from attempting to give a reason, which 
you both know he cannot give ; and then Mr. Attorney- 
general gets up to save your lordship in his turn, and 
to stop me from explaining your lordship's conduct." 

" I was a constant attender of your lordship some 
years ago, and I have gathered from your practice, 
some things which I take to be, and some which I take 
not to be, law." 

(Lord Mansfield, to the Attorney-general,) " Go on 
with the trial." 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 155 

Mr. HORNE " I shall hear no reason then from 

either of you ? Well, if so, I must submit." 

I cannot avoid adding the very severe and extraordi- 
nary attack which he made upon the Attorney-general. 
"He has talked so much of the fairness, and the con- 
science, and the integrity of his motives in doing it, 
that I am sure it will look comical if he refuses to hear 
those declarations. If he will not hear to those motives 
without his oath, I cannot believe it. If contrary to 
my expectations, he does hear to it, after his oath, I 
shall be left to exercise my own judgment." 

Great stress has been laid by Mr. Taylor, in his 
book, upon the apparent regard entertained for 
Woodfall by Junius. Expressions are quoted from 
his private letters, which cannot be construed in 
any other manner, than as meaning a particular kind- 
ness and friendship for Woodfall. 

I subjoin the evidence given by Mr. Woodfall upon 
this trial, which will, I think, prove, that between Mr. 
Horne and Woodfall, the same confidence existed, 
which is likely to have induced the confidential and 
friendly expressions of regard which Junius uses, and 



156 MEMOIRS OF 

that the intercourse had continued for nine years 
previous :— 

Henry Sampson Woodfall, sworn. 

Examined by Mr. Wallace, 

What business are you ? — A printer. 

Do you print any newspaper ? — Yes. 

What paper ? — The Public Advertiser. 

Mr. Wallace. — Look at these two papers, (showing 
the witness the manuscripts of the advertisements.) 
The witness inspects the manuscripts. 

Have you ever seen these papers before ? — Yes. 

When did you see the first of them ? — About the 7th 
of June, 1775, as near as I can recollect. 

By what means did you come by the sight of it ?— » 
Mr. HoRNE, the defendant, gave it me. 

For what purpose ? — To publish in the Public Ad- 
vertiser. 

Did you accordingly publish it ? — I did. 

Had you any other directions from Mr. Horne ?— • 
Yes. — He desired me to send it to several other papers, 
which 1 did. 

Do you recollect the names of any of them ? — The 
whole, I believe, of them ; I cannot exactly recollect. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 157 

Did you follow his directions ? — I did. 

Was any thing paid for it ? — Yes. . Mr. Horne 
paid the bill. 

For the publication ? — Yes. 

Mr. Wallace.— Look at those newspapers (showing 
the witness the Public Advertiser of June the 9th, and 
of July 14, 1775.) The witness inspects newspapers. 

Are those papers published by you I — I print that 
paper, and I suppose they are. 

Cross-examined by the Defendant. 

Mr. HoRNE. — I am very glad to see you, Mr, 
Woodfall. I desire to ask you some questions. Pray, 
what was your motive for inserting that advertise- 
ment ? — Your desire. 

Had you no other motive ? — I was paid for it, as 
the advertisement is paid for. 

Pray, was it by accident or by my desire, that there 
should be witnesses to see me write that advertise- 
ment ? — By your desire. 

And did I, or did I not, formerly, before that wit- 
ness, when called in, deliver that paper as my act and 
deed, as if it had been a bond ? — Yes. 

It is true I did. — Did I not always direct you, if 



158 MEMOIRS OF 

called upon, to furnish the fullest proof that you could 
give ? — You did, Sir. 

Now, then, Sir, if you please, say whether I have 
ever written any thing in your newspaper before ?-— 
Yes, frequently. 

How many years ago, do you think ? — The first 
remarkable thing that I remember, was something 
about Sir John Gibbons, about his mistaking Easter 
for a feast or a fast. 

How long ago is that? — About the year 1768, about 
the election time. 

That is about nine years ago ? — Yes. 
Have I at any time desired you to screen me from 
the laws ? — No. 

Has not the method of my transactions with you at 
all times been, that you should at all times, for your 
own sake, if called upon, give me up to justice ?— 
Certainly, that has always been your desire. 

Pray, Sir, were you not once called upon by the 
House of Commons for something that I wrote in your 
paper? — Yes, Sir. 

Do you remember that I did, or did not, when I 
took care to furnish such full proof of this advertise- 
ment, give you the reason for it? — I cannot say I 
recollect the reason. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 159 

1 will mention it. — Whether was this the reason. 
That in the last transaction before the House of Com- 
mons, it was pretended they let me off, because they 
could not get full evidence. Do you remember 
whether I rehearsed that or not ; and said, that if they 
now chose to take notice of this advertisement, they 
should not want full evidence ? — I do recollect that 
conversation. 

You remember that was the reason I gave ? — I do. 

Will you please to look at these newspapers ; (shew- 
ing several papers of the Public Advertiser to the witv 
ness. The witness inspects them.) Do you know 
these newspapers ? — I do. 

Do you believe that you published them ? — I do. 
Look at the dates. — I will call them over to you 
from a list — May the 30th and the 31st; June the 6th, 
the 9th, the 10th, the 12th, the 15th, and the 16th, 
1 775 ? — I have looked at the papers ; they are all of 
my publication ; the date of one of them I cannot 
make out ; it is June something. 

We will go on — June the 21st and the 27th, 1775 ; 
then there is January the 11th, February the 8th, Feb- 
ruary the 7th, the 11th, June the 2d, and June the 
30th, 1 777 ? — They are likewise of my publishing. 



160 MEMOIRS OF 

Pray, Sir, do you recollect the contents of the paper 
of May 30, 1775 ? — No, upon my soul, I do not. 

You are upon your oath. — I know that indeed. 

Read that part (pointing a part out;) read from 
" In provincial congress, April 26, 1774," down to 
that part (pointing it out.) 

Mr. Wallace. — The officer should read it; though 
not now. You will be entitled to read it, when you 
come to your defence. 

Mr. Horne. — Pray, do you know Mr. Arthur Lee ? 
Yes. 

Did you ever receive any account from him relative 
to the persons killed at Lexington and Concord? — I 
really do not recollect. 

Do you recollect that you ever published his name 
to an account ? — 1 think I did ; relating to his agency 
for some colony. 

Look at that, and see whether you remember that, 
and how you received it ? (Witness inspects Public 
Advertiser of May 31, 1775,)— Yes. I think I receiv- 
ed this from Mr. Arthur Lee. 

Pray, who was Mr. Arthur Lee ?— He is of the 
bar. I have seen him in Westminster-Hall. He was 
there at the trial of Mr. Wright, the printer, upon this 
very affair. I believe he was retained there. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 



161 



Pray, was he retained in your cause when you were 
to be prosecuted for this advertisement ?— He was. 

And why did you retain him ?— Had you any parti- 
cular reason?— I presumed he knew more of the 
subject of the advertisement than I did. 

Did he ever tell you any thing upon the subject ?— 
We have had private conversation together as a mat- 
ter of news. 

Did he ever tell you he had lodged affidavits with 
the Lord Mayor of London ? — He did. 

Sir, did you ever tell me so ?— I do not recollect. 
Pray, when had you, for the first time, any notice 
of a prosecution for the publishing of this advertise- 
ment ? — About two years ago. 

Pray, did that prosecution go on ? — No. 

Do you know why ?— Yes. I let judgment go by 

default. 

The first time ? — I was never called upon till last 

January. 

It began two years ago ; and you were never called 
forward upon it till last January?— I think that was 
about the month. 

As near as you can recollect ? — Yes. 

When were you first applied to, or were you ever 
applied to, to be a witness in this cause ?— 1 was not, 

21 



162 MEMOIRS OF 

You never were ? — N o. 

How came you to be an evidence ? — 1 heard that if 
1 could produce my author, matters might be better 
for me ; and as you had no sort of objection, (which 
you told me at the time) 1 did, of course, produce those 
copies that appeared there, to Messrs. Chamberlayne 
and White, the solicitors for the treasury. 

Should you, at any time, if you had been called 
upon, have declared that I was the author of that 
advertisement ? — Most certainly ; for you desired it. 

And would have given your evidence ? — Yes. 

Whom was the application made by ? — It was no 
sort of application at all ; 1 heard of it. 

By whom ? — My brother. 

You never refused to furnish evidence against the 
author? — No. 

l(ou never were applied to, to do it? — No; I was 
not. 

You have said that I never desired you to conceal 
me from the law for any thing you published from me. 
Did you ever receive any letter or message from Sir 
Thomas Mills in your life ? — A private letter I have. 

But did not the private letter relate to that public* 
paper ? — Never. 

Did you never receive any message not to insert 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 163 

any thing in your paper about Lord Mansfield's earl- 
dom ? — No. 

Upon your oath ? — Upon my oath, to the best of my 
recollection, I never did. 

From any quarter ? — No. 

Sir, were you ever sent for by Lord Bute ? — No ; I 
never saw him. 

Were you not sent for, for inserting a paragraph 
about the King's marriage ? — No ; 1 am not consulted 
by the higher powers, I assure you. 

If 1 had thought you were, I never should have 
trusted you : 1 do not think you are. — I am much 
obliged to you for your good opinion. 

Mr. Horne. — I will give you no more trouble. 

The following passages, introduced for the purpose 
of showing how closely Horne and Junius sometimes, 
approach in point of style, may not be uninteresting to 
the reader. They certainly have the greatest weight 
in point of proof on this question. 

" Murder and sodomy, you know, have, in these our 
days, often found successful solicitors : and the laws 
against popery (though unrepealed, and in full legal 
force) are, when resorted to, thought by the magis- 



164 MEMOIRS OF 

trate who presides here, too rigorous to be suffered to 
have their free course, against a religion so destructive 
to the civil rights of mankind, and to favor absolute 
and arbitrary power. But while that has been favored 
beyond the laws, nothing beyond the laws has been 
thought rigorous and severe enough against the charge 
of libel. Murder, under the most aggravating circum- 
stances, has been repeatedly pardoned : and treason, 
the blackest treason to the family on the throne, and 
{ivhat is of much more consequence to us than any 
family) to the free constitution of this country, has been 
not only pardoned, but taken into favor; and the 
estates of convict traitors have been restored to them 
aud their families, while mercy and forgiveness have 
been thus flowing unnaturally, in a full stream, over 
the highest mountains of iniquity. Has any of you 
ever spied the smallest rivulet descending towards the 
valley of the libeller ? Has any man, charged with a 
libel (and what has not been charged as a libel :) has 
any man so charged, ever yet met with mercy ?" 

The tone of cool irony — the side blow at Lord 
Mansfield — the air of contempt with which he speaks 
of the abuse of the prerogative, are the very spirit of 
Junius : and compares with the passage italicised, the 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 165 

same sentiment in Junius, studiously inserted — " The 
man who deserts it at this crisis, is an enemy to his 
country, and what I think, of infinitely less importance, 
a traitor to his sovereign." 

The same tone of sarcastic contempt pervades the 
following : — 

" A gentleman who was a juryman on that occasion, 
is now a baronet, and of great consequence at the 
India-House. Gentlemen, if you make yourselves 
useful, there is a better track open to you than the 
honorable and just gains of your profession." 

" Gentlemen, it is very well known that the Attorney 
and Solicitor-generals, make a considerable part of 
every administration. They sit there in the House of 
Commons on each side of the minister. The Jachin 
and Boaz of the minister in the House of Commons. 
However, gentlemen, though this situation of theirs 
makes us smile, it is a very serious thing, especially 
when their honor and conscience are to go to you for 
proof instead of argument." " Gentlemen, libel, 
as well as the Attorney-general, depends very much 
upon the minister ; why, do not we all know very well 



166 MEMOIRS OF 

that they who were pilloried for a libel in the last 
reign, are pensioned in this ?" 

"It is not for crimes against the state, that this? 
power intervenes, but for partial political opinions ; 
and the man who is pilloried and imprisoned to-day, 
may, for the same act, be pensioned to-morrow, as the 
hands change. If this party goes down, it is a libel — 
if it comes up, it is a merit. Is it in this kind of change 
that an Attorney-general should employ all these un- 
just powers ? Sermons, petitions, books against plays, 
saying that money will corrupt men — nothing but 
barely mentioning the effects of money ; all have been 
prosecuted and punished, and ears cut off, and those 
things for libel." 

JUNIUS. — " Cutting off ears and noses might still be 
inflicted by a resolute judge." 

HORNE. — " Gentlemen, 1 said that ex ejficio contain- 
ed every thing that was illegal, unjust, wicked, 
and oppressive — He (the Attorney-general,) 
' brings it on as he pleases.' — He has no resort 
to a grand jury, or the country, to accuse; but 
contrary to express law, and what is much 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 167 

stranger, contrary to the strongest and the 
very fundamental reason of that law, he has no 
recourse to a grand jury, because it is the pre- 
tended suit of the crown." 

JUNIUS, on the same argument. — "If any honest 
man should still be inclined to leave the con- 
struction of libels to the court, 1 entreat him 
to consider what a dreadful complication of 
hardships he imposes upon his fellow-subjects. 
In the first place, the prosecution commences 
by information of an officer of the crown, and 
not by the regular constitutional mode of in- 
dictment before a grand jury." 

HORNE pursues — » Indeed, the nature of a libel 
always makes a jury the best judges of it. For 
a libel, (if it be so,) is indeed for mischief; if 
must therefore, be intelligible to the people ; 
or no mischief could be produced by it. If a 
man writes a libel that a common jury could 
not understand, (and you are a special jury, 
gentlemen,) he must fail in his design." 

JUNIUS.—" But the truth is, that if a paper, supposed 
to be a libel upon government, be so obscurely 



168 MEMOIRS OF 

worded, that twelve common men could not 
possibly see the seditious meaning and ten- 
dency of it, it is, in effect, no libel. 

HORNE. — " I have laid before you a sacred principle 
with which 1 am much better acquainted than 
with any precedents — and for one of which I 
woidd willingly give up all the precedents that 
ever existed." 



JUNIUS, to Mr. Wilkes. — " It is not that precedents 
have any weight with me in opposition to 
principles, but I know they weigh with the 
multitude." 



HORNE. — "My lords, he represents me as speaking 

the language of ' if you dare to punish 

me ;' and he says, ' it is a language addressed 
to the lowest of the mob.' Indeed, 1 think so 
too ; but it is his own language, not mine. 
My lords, he has dwelt upon my occasions, my 
desperate situation, my want of character and 
fortune. My lords, it is my misfortune that, 
from my cradle, I have had as effeminate an 
education and care, and course of my life, as 
Mr. Attorney-generaL 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 169 

" It is my misfortune, that there was not a 
greater want of fortune ; and as for my occa- 
sions, my means have always been beyond 
them. I should rather, my lords, if I was 
speaking in extenuation, or to mitigate your 
punishment, 1 should rather close in with Mr. 
Attorney-general, and acknowledge myself 
that desperate, helpless wretch, that he has re- 
presented me. Perhaps it would be the most 
effectual motive to your lordships compassion. 
My lords, I never, in my life, solicited a favor ; 
I never desire to meet with compassion. My 
lords, he has talked to your lordships of my 
patrons. I have had in my life, and early in 
my life, the greatest of patrons ; aye, with all 
their power, greater than any that now hear 
me. My lords, I renounced my patrons, be- 
cause I would not renounce my principles ; 
repeatedly, over and over again, of different 
descriptions and in different situations. My 
lords, I am proud, because I am insulted ; or 
else I certainly should not have held any of 
this language. My lords, Mr. Attorney-gen- 
eral, through a blameful carelessness, has told 
you a story of a theological, polemical dispute 
22 



110 MEMOIRS OP 

between myself and a parishioner. I can 
easily conceive that he let himself fall into 
that mistake, for the sake of a smile from 
your lordships and the court, upon the rever- 
end gentleman. But in this, like the rest, 
my lords, there is not a syllable, not the 
smallest foundation, of truth. I never had a 
theological, polemical dispute. My lords, I 
am free to acknowledge that no theological 
disputes that, ever I read, and I have endeav- 
oured to read all that ever happened ; none of 
them ever interested me in the manner that 
the present dispute do interest me. My lords, 
I never was made to be a martyr. I have 
opinions of my own ; but I never intended to 
suffer for them at the stake. 

" My lords, he has endeavoured to insinuate, 
that all that I wrote, and all that I said, was, 
for the sake of a paradeful triumph over jus- 
tice : and he has talked again and again of 
the mob. My lords, the mob have conferred 
no greater favors upon me, than upon Mr. 
Attorney- general. 1 have been repeatedly 
followed by very numerous mobs, in order to 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 171 

destroy me, single, and alone, for a great 
length of way : not once, or twice, or three 
times, but four and five times ; two or three 
thousand at my heels. I am sensible of the 
ridicule of the situation, even whilst I mention 
it. These are the only favors that I ever 
have received from the mob ; these are the 
only favors that I have solicited ; and I pro- 
test to your lordships, I had much rather hear 
the mob hiss than halloo, for the latter would 
give me the headach ; the first gives me no pain. 
My lords, I have heard of those who have ex- 
pressed more wishes for popularity than ever 
I felt. I have heard it said, and I think it 
was in this court, that they would have popu- 
larity, but it should be that popularity which 
follows, not that which is sought after ! My 
lords, I am proud enough to despise them 
both. If popularity would oner itself to me, 
I would speedly take care to kick it away. 
My lords, as for ambition, and bodies of men, 
and parties, and societies, there is nothing of 
it in the case. There is no body of men with 
whom I can think, that I know of. There is 
no body of men with whom I am connected. 



172 MEMOIRS OF 

There is no man, or men, from whom I expect 
help, or assistance, or friendship, of any kind 
beyond that which my principles or services 
may deserve from them individually. Private 
friendships I have, like other men, but they 
are very few ; however, that is recompense 
to me, for they are very worthy. My lords. 
Mr. Attorney-general has said, that I repre- 
sented imprisonment as no kind of inconveni- 
ence to me. As no kind of inconvenience, my 
lords, will not certainly be true, because the 
great luxury of my life is a very small, but a 
very clean cottage: and though imprisonment 
will be so far inconvenient to me, the cause of 
it will make it not painful. My lords, I find 
that only I have a sort of understanding, very 
different from that of Mr. Attorney-general ; 
but my notions of law, and my notions of 
humanity, are equally different. My lords, 
between the time that 1 had the last honor of 
appearing before you and the present time, it 
happens very unfortunate y for Mr. Attorney- 
general that he has proved, that not only my 
notions of law and decency, but my notions 
of propriety and humanity are wideiy different 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 173 

from his ; and I mention it, my lords, because 
it goes immediately to the doctrine now at- 
tempted to be established. 

" Mr. Attorney-general has heard a person, 
as great as himself, between that time and this, 
justify the legality, the propriety, the humanity 
of the tomahawk and the scalping knife. 
Between the last time I appeared here, and 
this time, these have been the sort of king's 
troops, justified by a high officer of the law, 
to be employed as legal, proper, mild, and 
humane." 

JUNIUS' Letter, 44. — " To write for profit, without 
taxing the press ; to write for fame, and to be 
unknown ; to support the intrigues of faction, 
and to be disowned as a dangerous auxiliary, 
by every party in the kingdom, are contradic- 
tions which the minister must reconcile before I 
forfeit my credit with the public. I may quit 
the service, but it would be absurd to suspect 
me of desertion. The reputation of these pa- 
pers is an honorable pledge for my attachment 
to the people. To sacrifice a respected char- 



174 MEMOIRS OF 

acter, and to renounce the esteem of society, 
requires more than Mr. Wedderburne's reso- 
lution ; and though in him it was rather a 
profession than a desertion of his principles, 
(1 speak tenderly of this gentleman, for when 
treachery is in question, I think we should 
make allowances for a Scotchman.) Yet we 
have seen him in the House of Commons 
overwhelmed with confusion, and almost bereft 
of his faculties. But, in truth, Sir, I have left 
no room for an accommodation with the piety 
of St. James'. My offences are not to be re- 
deemed by recantation or repentance. On 
one side, our warmest patriots would disclaim 
me as a burthen to their honest ambition. On 
the other, the vilest prostitution, if Junius 
could descend to it, would lose its natural 
merit and influence in the cabinet, and treach- 
ery be no longer a recommendation to the 
royal favor." 

To these extracts may be added the ac- 
count given of Junius, in his own admissions, 
contained in his private letters, and gathered 
from expressions in his public letters; and 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 175 

they will be found, I think, to increase the 
strength of our proof in favor of Mr. Horne. 
They have at least the effect of destroying 
Mr. Francis' claims. In the comparison 
between Tooke and Mr. F., it is conclusive 
against Mr. Francis. To the single pre- 
tensions of Mr. F., it has a more decided 
application than to those of any other claim- 
ant, and therefore increases the presumption 
in favor of Horne Tooke. 



CHAPTER IX. 

I NOW approach the celebrated controversy between 
John Horne and Junius, which is mainly relied on 
by those who argue against Mr. Horne's pretensions 
to the authorship of Junius, as decisive of the question. 
Upon the first view, it does, indeed, seem to have this 
effect, but a closer examination of the circumstances, 
under which the correspondence originated, the rela- 
tive situation of Horne with Wilkes, and Junius with 
Wilkes, and the nature and causes of the quarrel 
which separated the bodies of the popular party, will, I 
think, weaken the force of this reasoning. The whole 
correspondence appears to me, (and I will state my 
reasons) to be a mere finesse — a bold and successful 
attempt to turn public attention from the author, and 
disunite forever the ideas of Horne and Junius. 

John Wilkes, Esq., Alderman of London, and M. P. 
for Middlesex, and John Horne, clerk, had been, up 

23 



178 MEMOIRS OF 

to the time of this correspondence, joint leaders of the 
popular party in the city of London. But united as 
they were in advancing the public cause, their char- 
acters and circumstances, and I may add, their ultimate 
views, were too radically different, to permit them to 
feel a personal cordiality for each other, or agree long 
in the prosecution of the same public aim. Scrupu- 
lously just and honorable himself, Mr. Horne could 
not but be disgusted with the follies, and consequent 
necessities, which Mr. Wilkes could not, by any argu- 
ment, be induced to forego, even for the most important 
public objects ; nor could he forbear from constantly 
and loudly expressing his indignation at the luxurious 
and profligate course of life, shamelessly persisted in by 
a man, who was supported by the bounty of the public. 
In addition to this cause of difference, Mr. Wilkes' 
glaring inconsistency on the subject of the American 
war, and his meanness for preventing a vote of money 
to the printer, Bingley, hastened the hostilities which 
ensued between them. The contest commenced by an 
account, which was published in the Public Advertiser 
of October 31, 1770, of a meeting held at Westminster, 
relative to the impeachment of Lord North. This 
account reflected severely upon Mr. Wilkes, who was 
the chairman on that occasion ; and it was attributed 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 179 

to Mr. Horne. Mr. Wilkes replied, under his own 
signature, and was seconded by two anonymous 
writers under the signatures of " Scourge" and " Cat- 
o-nine-tails" Mr. Horns then commenced his public 
letters to Mr. Wilkes, by a reply, published in the Pub- 
lic Advertiser, and dated Monday, January 14, 1771. 
This letter commenced in the following manner : — 

41 Sir, — An agent of yours declared some time ago, 
that it would be useful to your affairs, to come to an 
open rupture with me. From this opinion has flowed 
all the abuse which has lately been bestowed upon me 
in the public papers. I believe you have mistaken a 
strong inclination for policy, and have yielded to na- 
tural bias, in opposition to honesty, and your interest." 

Mr. Wilkes replied with acrimony, and the corres- 
pondence continued, until it was closed by a final 
letter of Mr. Horne's, dated July 10th. The letter 
of Junius, in which the men/ion of Mr. Horne was 
made, from which the controversy with him took rise, 
is dated July 9th, the very day before ; and JVftr. 
Horne's reply is dated July 13. These dates are of 
some little importance, and deserve some attention. 
Wilkes had announced by his letter, dated June 20th, 



180 MEMOIRS OF 

his intention of making no further reply to Mr. 
HoRNE. Horne, thus left in possession of the field, 
was attacked by the invisible Junius, on the very day 
preceding the publication of his own last letter, and at a 
time when popular feeling was very strong against 
him. Shut out by his quarrel with Wilkes, from an 
active participation in election politics, and having 
just finished his newspaper controversy, the attack 
found him at perfect leisure to vindicate himself, and 
(upon the supposition that he was himself his own as- 
sailant for the purposes of justification) the time was 
well chosen. 

It cannot be denied, that the contest with Mr. 
Wilkes had made Mr. Horne very odious to the 
supporters of the latter gentleman ; and, as he was in 
the zenith of his popularity, Mr. Horne was propor- 
tionably disliked, Of the justice of the dispute, no 
doubt possibly could be entertained. The impolicy 
on the part of Mr. HoR^iE is equally clear; and not- 
withstanding the firmness and ability with which he 
defended himself, and attacked the motives and conduct 
of Wilkes, he met the usual fate of all who attempt to 
stem the current of popular feeling, by endeavouring to 
expose the errors of its idol. The public declared in 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 181 

lavor of Mr. Wilkes, and a division between the popu- 
lar leaders hurt the public cause. It was under such 
circumstances, that Junius, by an unfounded and un- 
provoked attack, gave Mr. Horne an opportunity of 
complete justification. This favors our supposition, 
and several other circumstances strengthen it further. 

The personal feelings and honor of Mr. HoRNE had 
been wounded by Mr. Wilkes, in their controversy. 
Charges had been brought against him covertly and 
anonymously by Wilkes, or under his direction, to 
which Mr. Horne was bound to make reply, or forfeit 
his credit with the public. The quarrel drew him into 
an expose of the character of Mr. Wilkes, and his 
own private causes of complaint against him, which 
causes involved a considerable degree of moral tur- 
pitude on Wilkes. This Mr. Horne was bound 
in honor to do, and his refutation was complete, 
as to his own character, and his charges against his ad- 
versary were as fully proven. In all this, however, the 
vindication of his own personal share in the transactions 
of the day, and the discussion of the removal of lesser 
evils, were alone the objects of Mr. Horne. No man 
was more capable than he was, to distinguish between 
the man and his cause ; and no man more willing, 



182 MEMOIRS OF 

as his life uniformly showed, to postpone the gratifi- 
cation of his own feelings to the public good. His 
motives of conduct, on such occasions, are expressed 
by himself, in one of his letters to Wilkes, in this 
strong manner : — 

" For these purposes, if it were possible to suppose 
that the great enemy of mankind could be rendered 
instrumental to their happiness, so far the devil himself 
should be supported by the people. For a human in- 
strument they should go further — he should not only 
be supported, but thanked and rewarded, for the good 
which perhaps he did not intend, as an encouragement 
to others to follow his example. 

"As far as the support of Mr. Wilkes tends to that 
point, 1 am as warm as the warmest ; but all the lines 
of your projects are drawn towards a different centre — 
yourself — and if with a good intention 1 have been dili- 
gent to gain your powers, which may be perverted to 
mischief, I am bound to be doubly diligent to prevent 
their — — being so employed." 

Thus then he avowed his disposition not to abandon 
the support of Mr. Wilkes, so far as his cause was a 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 183 

public cause. His intentions were to correct his er- 
rors, and scrutinize his conduct, to make him worthy 
of that support: and hence the violence of Mr. Wilkes, 
and his partizans, against Horne. Holding these 
sentiments, (and they are the sentiments of Junius,) 
is it in any light to be wondered at, that he should 
support anonymously as Junius, the man whom his 
public support could avail nothing, but to bring addi- 
tional misrepresentations on the supporter? Identified 
as Mr. Wilkes was, with reform of parliament, the 
right of representation, and popular rights in general, 
it was not for such a man as Horne to stop mid- 
way, or spare himself in the contest, on his behalf. 

In these views, then, as artifice to divert public at- 
tention, as a means of vindicating himself and his 
character, and as anonymous support, &c. of the 
popular candidate, whom he could not openly aid, the 
pretended controversy was eminently successful. 

The weakness of the charge made against Horne, 
by Junius, and the precipitancy with which it was 
given up, upon Horne's public denial and demand 
of proof, have often been remarked, but never ac- 
counted for before. The slanders with which the 



184 MEMOIRS OF 

newspapers had been filled, relative to Horne, were 
collected in a compendious sentence, and urged 
gravely, and with apparent bitterness, by a most popu- 
lar writer. The accused party demands explanation 
and proof, unequivocally denying their truth. The 
accuser, though backed by the popular opinion, and 
with all the arguments that Wilkes and his partizans 
had furnished for months before, reiterates the charge, 
without offering proof, and adds abuse. The accused 
replies with a full and triumphant vindication of his 
character, and recriminates upon his adversary, who 
retires from the contest, and leaves the party acquitted, 
and in possession of the field. It would be beyond 
the belief of any man, to assert that Junius might not 
have made out a better case than he did, or that HoRNE 
would not have found himself better matched than 
with Wilkes, had the same spirit that actuated Junius 
against the Duke of Grafton, pushed him to the same 
extremities. The whole affair has, with this explana- 
tion, the air of an ingenious finesse, through which 
the author, under his own name, might acquire addi- 
tional reputation as a writer, at the same time he 
vindicated his reputation as a politician, and as a 
man of honor ; while in his anonymous character, he 
urged those measures, which the peculiarity of his own 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 185 

situation prevented him from asserting with any pro- 
bability of success. 

It is urged in opposition to all this, that it is highly 
improbable, that any man would use of himself, the 
terms of reproach which were so freely bestowed by 
both parties in this contest. To this, several answers 
may be given, each of which is of some force in obvi- 
ating the objection. In matters of high importance, 
where there are reasonable arguments to answer, or 
important objects to attain, men of cool judgment and 
independent spirit, care little for opprobrious epithets. 
These are only for effect upon the multitude, and are 
used in the present instance, most probably to increase 
the public opinion of the sincerity of the combatants. 
From the newspapers of the day, could be culled a 
hundred vituperative figures of speech, applied in every 
variety, and form of expression to each, by the parti- 
zans of the ministry, and the friends of Wilkes. It re- 
quired no great range of reading, or labor of selection, 
to cull from them all the reproachful terms which were 
necessary to sustain the character, and evidence the 
sincerity of each. The most obvious reproach against 
Mr. Horne, in his own person, was his original pro- 
fession. Of this he frequently spoke himself; his 

24 



186 MEMOIRS OF 

opponents constantly rung the changes upon it, and 
his old friends now became his enemies, spoke sneer- 
ingly of "gieddling priests" — Parson Horne. 

Accordingly the sarcasms of Junius are addressed 
against this popular cause of odium. The obscurity 
and unaccountability of Junius, formed with the other 
topics of newspaper invective — the burden of Horne's 
replies, and thus mutual revilings, were handed back- 
ward and forward, with as much industry and apparent 
sincerity, as though the two hands, in which they were 
tossed to and fro, did not belong to the same body. 
That such insensibility to printed calumny, was a 
peculiar trait in Mr. Horne, and that he is from that 
circumstance, likely to have written for the purposes 
of mystery, disparagingly of himself. I shall show by 
a similar circumstance, avowed by himself, in his re- 
marks to the jury, after his acquittal for high treason, 
in 1794:— 

" Every man who came to me, of every opinion 
" whatever, if he asked my opinion, 1 corrected 
" his books — a gentleman in court wrote a book 
" against me, I corrected the book myself." 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 187 

This fact proves his insensibility to the common feel- 
ings of literary antagonists, and is strong upon this point. 
Whether he did not, in a mysterious manner, allude to 
the very correspondence of which I am speaking, and 
describe himself as " a gentleman in court," is a ques- 
tion which cannot possibly be answered decisively. I 
think with some of those who have examined Horne's 
pretensions to this claim, that there is the greatest pro- 
bability, that he covertly alluded to the letters of 
Junius, he himself being the author. 

I shall quote from Mr. Stephens' life of John 
Horne Tooke, Vol. I, page 415, in which he says, 
" I have been assured more than once, by the subject 
of this memoir, that he absolutely knew the author 
who wrote under the name of Junius." To another 
gentleman, he lately added, " that Junius was still 
alive."* 



* This is precisely corroborated in his private conversations with the 
author of this, about twelve years previous, as detailed in the first chapter, 
pages 17 and 18, ante. 



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CHAPTER X. 

Junius, in his letter to his grace the Duke of 
Grafton, dated July 9, 1771, first commencing his 
attack on Mr. Horne, by observing : — 

" The unfortunate success of the Reverend Mr. 
HoRNE's endeavours in support of the ministerial 
nomination of sheriffs, will, I fear, obstruct his prefer- 
ment. Permit me to recommend him to your grace's 
protection. You will find him copiously gifted with 
those qualities of the heart, which usually direct you 
in the choice of your friendships. He too, was Mr. 
Wilkes' friend ; and, as incapable as you are, of the 
liberal resentment of a gentleman. No, my lord, it 
was the solitary, vindictive malice of a monk, brood- 
ing over the infirmities of his friend, until he thought 
they quickened into public life, and feasting with a 
rancorous rapture, upon the sordid catalogue of his 
distresses. Now let him go back to his cloister. 



190 MEMOIRS OF 

The church is a proper retreat for him. In his princi- 
ples, he is already a bishop. . 

" The mention of this man has moved me from my 
natural moderation. 

Junius." 



FROM THE REVEREND MR. HORNE TO JUNIUS. 

" July 13, 1771. 
" Sir — Farce, Comedy and Tragedy — Wilkes, Foott 
and Junius, united at the same time against one poor 
parson, are fearful odds. The two former are only 
laboring in their vocation, and may equally plead, in 
excuse, that their aim is a livelihood. I admit the 
plea for the second: his is an honest calling, and my 
clothes were lawful game ; but I cannot so readily 
approve Mr. Wilkes, or commend him for making 
patriotism a trade, and a fraudulent trade. But what 
shall I say to Junius ? The grave, the solemn, the di- 
dactic ! Ridicule, indeed, has been ridiculously called 
the test of truth ; but surely, to confess that you 
lose your natural moderation when mention is made 



JOHN HORNE TOOKEv 191 

of the man, does not promise much truth or justice 
when you speak of him yourself. 

" You charge me with ' a new zeal in support of 
administration,' and with ' endeavours in support 
of the ministerial nomination of sheriffs.' The re- 
putation which your talents have deservedly gained 
to the signature of Junius, draws from me a reply, 
which I disdained to give to the anonymous lies of 
Mr. Wilkes. You make frequent use of the word 
gentleman ; I only call myself a man, and desire no 
other distinction. If you are either, you are bound to 
make good your charges, or to confess that you have 
done me a hasty injustice upon no authority. 

" I put the matter fairly to issue. I say that, so far 
from any 'new zeal in support of administration,' I 
am possessed with the utmost abhorrence of their 
measures ; and that I have ever shown myself, and 
am still ready, in any rational manner, to lay down all 
I have — my life, in opposition to those measures. I 
say, that I have not, and never have had, any commu- 
nication or connection of any kind, directly or indi- 
rectly, with any courtier or ministerial man, or any of 
their adherents ; that I never have received, or solicit- 



192 MEMOIRS OF 

ed, or expected, or desired, or do now hope for, any 
reward of any sort, from any party or set of men in 
administration, or opposition. I say, that I never used 
any ' endeavours in support of the ministerial nomi- 
nation of sheriffs ;' that I did not solicit any one livery- 
man for his vote for any one of the candidates, nor 
employ any other person to solicit ; and that I did 
not write on^ single line or word in favor of Messrs. 
Plumbe and Kirkman, whom I understand to have 
been supported by the ministry. 

" You are bound to refute what I here advance, or 
to lose your credit for veracity. You must produce 
facts ; surmise and general abuse, in however elegant 
language, ought not to pass for proofs. You have 
every advantage, and I have every disadvantage : 
you are unknown, I give my name. All parties, both 
in and out of administration, have their reasons (which 
I shall relate hereafter) for uniting in their wishes 
against me : and the popular prejudice is as strongly 
in your favor as it is violent against the parson. 

" Singular as my present situation is, it is neither 
painful, nor was it unforeseen. He is not fit for public 
business, who does not, even at his entrance, prepare 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 193 

his mind for such an event. Health, fortune, tran- 
quility, and private connections, I have sacrificed upon 
the altar of the public ; and the only return I received, 
because I will not concur to dupe and mislead a sense- 
less multitude, is barely, that they have not yet torn 
me in pieces. That this has been the only return is 
my pride, and a source of more real satisfaction than 
honors or prosperity. I can practice, before 1 am old, 
the lessons I learned in my youth ; nor shall I forget 
the words of an ancient monitor : — 



" 'Tis the last key-stone 
" That makes the arch : the rest that there were put, 
i{ Are nothing till that comes to bind and shut ; 
" Then stands it a triumphal mark ! Then men 
" Observe the strength, the height, the why and when 
" It was erected ; and still, walking under, 
^ Meet some new matter to look up and wonder." 



1 am, Sir, your humble servant, 

" John Horne." 



2T5 



194 MEMOIRS OF 



TO THE REVEREND MR. TOOKE. 

July 24, 1771. 
" Sir — I cannot descend to an altercation with you in 
the newspapers : but since I have attacked your char- 
acter, and you complain of injustice, I think you have 
some right to an explanation. You defy me to prove 
that you ever solicited a vote, or wrote a word in sup- 
port of the ministerial aldermen. Sir, I did never 
suspect you of such gross folly. It would have been 
impossible for Mr. Horne to have solicited votes, and 
very difficult to have written in the newspapers in 
defence of that cause, without being detected, and 
brought to shame. Neither do 1 pretend to any in- 
telligence concerning you, or to know more of your 
conduct than you yourself have thought proper to 
communicate to the public. It is from your own 
letters, I conclude, that you have sold yourself to the 
ministry : or, if that charge be too severe, and suppos- 
ing it possible to be deceived by appearances so very 
strongly against you, what are your friends to say in 
your defence ? Must they not confess, that, to gratify 
your personal hatred of Mr. Wilkes, you sacrificed, as 
far as depended on your interest and abilities, the cause 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 195 

of the country ? 1 can make allowance for the violence 
of the passions ; and if ever 1 should be convinced 
that you had no motive but to destroy Wilkes, I shall 
then be ready to do justice to your character, and to 
declare to the world, that I despise you somewhat less 
than 1 do at present. But, as a public man, I must 
forever condemn you. You cannot but know, (nay, 
you dare not pretend to be ignorant) that the highest 
gratifications of which the most detestable # *in this 
nation is capable, would have been the defeat of 
Wilkes. I know that man much better than any of 
you. Nature intended him only for a good humoured 
fool. A systematical education, with long practice, 
has made him a consummate hypocrite. Yet this man, 
to say nothing of his worthy ministers, you have most 
assiduously labored to gratify. To exclude Wilkes, 
it was not necessary you should solicit votes for his 
opponents. We incline the balance as effectually by 
lessening the weight in one scale, as by increasing it 
in the other. 

" The mode of your attack upon Wilkes (though I 
am far from thinking meanly of your abilities) convin- 
ces me that you either want judgment extremely, or 
that you are blinded by your resentment. You ought 



196 MEMOIRS OF 

to have foreseen that the charges you urged against 
Wilkes could never do him any mischief. Alter all, 
when we expected discoveries highly interesting to the 
community, what a pitiful detail did it end in ! — some 
old clothes — a Welch pony — a French footman — and 
a hamper of claret. Indeed, Mr. Horne, the public 
should and will forgive him his rlaret and his footman, 
and even the ambition of making his brother cham- 
berlain of London, as long as he stands forth against 
a ministry and parliament who are doing every thing 
they can to enslave the country, and as long as he is 
a thorn i>i the King's side. You will not suspect me 
of setting Wilkes up for a perfect character. The 
question to the public is, where shall we find a man 
who, with purer principles, will go the lengths, and 
run the hazards, that he has done ? The season calls 
for such a man, and he ought to be supported. What 
would have been the triumph of that odious hypocrite 
and his minions, if Wilkes had been defeated? It was. 
not your fault, reverend sir, that he did not enjoy it 
completely. But now I promise you, you have so 
little power to do mischief, that I much question, 
whether the ministry will adhere to the promises they 
have made you. It will be in vain to say that I am 
a partizan of Mr. Wilkes, or personally your enemy. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 197 

You will convince no man, for you do not believe it 
yourself. Yet I confess I am a little offended at the 
low rate at which you seem to value my understand- 
ing. I beg, Mr. Horne, you will hereafter believe, 
that I measure the integrity of men by their conduct, 
not by their professions. Such tales may entertain 
Mr. Oliver, or your grandmother ; but, trust me, 
they are thrown away upon Junius. 

" You say you are a man. Was it generous, was 
it manly, repeatedly to introduce into a newspaper, 
the name of a young lady with whom you must here- 
tofore have lived on terms of politeness and good 
humour ? But I have done with you. In my opinion, 
your credit is irrecoverably ruined. Mr. Townshend, 
I think, is nearly in the same predicament. Poor 
Oliver has been shamefully duped by you. You have 
made him sacrifice all the honor he got by his impris- 
onment. As for Mr. Sawbridge, whose character I 
really respect, I am astonished he does not see through 
your duplicity. Never was so base a design so poorly 
conducted. This *letter, you see, is not intended for 



» This letter was transmitted privately by the printer to Mr. Horse, at 
Junius' request. Mr. Horse returned it to the printer, with directions to 
publish it. 



198 MEMOIRS OF 

the public ; but, if you think it will do you any ser- 
vice, you are at liberty to publish it. 

" Junius." 



FROM THE REVEREND MR. HORNE TO JUNIUS. 

July 31, 1771. 
" Sir — You have disappointed me. When I told 
you that surmise and general abuse, in however elegant 
language, ought not to pass for proofs, I evidently 
hinted at the reply which I expected : but you have 
dropped your usual elegance, and seem willing to try 
what will be the effect of surmise and general abuse 
in very coarse language. Your answer to my last 
letter (which, I hope, was cool, and temperate, and 
modest) has convinced me, that my idea of a man is 
much superior to yours of a gentleman. Of your 
former letters, I have always said, Materien superabat 
opus : I do not think so of the present : the principles 
are more detestable than the expressions are mean 
and illiberal. 1 am contented that all those who 
adopt the one, should forever load me with the other. 

" I appeal to the common sense of the public, to 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 199 

which I have ever directed myself: I believe they have 
it ; though I am sometimes half inclined to suspect, 
that Mr. Wilkes has formed a truer judgment of man- 
kind than I have. However, of this I am sure, that 
there is nothing else upon which to place a steady reli- 
ance. Trick, and low cunning, and addressing their 
prejudices and passions, may be the fitest means to 
carry a particular point ; if they have not common 
sense, there is no prospect of gaining for them any 
real permanent good. The same passions which have 
been artfully used by an honest man for their advant- 
age, may be more artfully employed by a dishonest 
man for their destruction. I desire them to apply 
their common sense to this letter of Junius, not for my 
sake, but their own ; it concerns them most nearly ; for 
the principles it contains lead to disgrace and ruin, 
and are inconsistent with every notion of civil society. 

" The charges which Junius has brought against 
me, are made ridiculous by his own inconsistency and 
self-contradiction. He charges me positively with 
' a new zeal in support of administration ;' and with 
' endeavours in support of the ministerial nomination 
of sheriffs.' And he assigns two inconsistent motives 
for my conduct : either that I have ' sold myself to the 



200 MEMOIRS OF 

ministry ;' or am instigated ' by the solitary vindictive 
malice of a monk :' either that I am influenced by a 
sordid desire of gain, or am hurried on by ' personal 
hatred, and blinded by resentment.' In his letter to 
the Duke of Grafton, he supposes me actuated by both: 
in his letter to me, he at first doubts which of the two, 
whether interest or revenge is my motive. However, 
at last he determines for the former, and again posi- 
tively asserts, « that the ministry have made me pro- 
mises :" yet he produces no instance of corruption, 
nor pretends to have any intelligence of a ministerial 
connection. He mentions no cause of personal hatred 
to Mr. Wilkes, nor any reason for my resentment or 
revenge ; nor has Mr. Wilkes himself ever hinted any, 
though repeatedly pressed. When Junius is called 
upon to justify his accusation, he answers, ' He cannot 
descend to an altercation with me in the newspapers.' 
Junius, who exists only in the newspapers, who ac- 
knowledges he has ' attacked my character' there, and 
thinks 'I have some right to an explanation;' yet this 
Junius ' cannot descend to an altercation in the 
newspapers!' And because he cannot descend to an 
altercation with me in the newspapers, he sends a letter 
of abuse, by the printer, which he finishes with telling 
me, ' I am at liberty to publish it.'' This, to be sure, 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 201 

is a most excellent method to avoid an altercation in 
the newspapers ! 

" The proofs of his positive charges are as extraor- 
dinary. * He does not pretend to any intelligence 
concerning me, or to know more of my conduct than 
I myself have thought proper to communicate to the 
public.' He does not suspect me of such gross folly 
as to have solicited votes, or to have written anony- 
mously in the newspapers ; because it is impossible to 
do either without being detected, and brought to shame. 
Junius says this ! who yet imagines that he has him- 
self written two years under that signature (and more 
under others) without being detected ! his warmest ad- 
mirers will not hereafter add, without being brought to 
shame. But, though he did never suspect me of such 
gross lolly as to run the hazard of being detected, and 
brought to shame, by anonymous writing, he insists 
that I have been guilty of much grosser folly, of in- 
curring the certainty of shame and detection, by writ- 
ings signed with my name ! But this is a small flight 
for the towering Junius : ' He is far from thinking 
meanly of my abilities,' though ' he is convinced that 
I want judgment extremely ;' and can ' really respect 

26 



i02 MEMOIRS OF 

Mr. Sawbridge's character,' though he declares him 
to be so poor a creature, as not to ' see through the 
basest design, conducted in the poorest manner !' And 
this most base design is conducted in the poorest 
manner by a man, whom he does not suspect of gross 
folly, and of whose abilities he is far from thinking 
meanly ! 

" Should we ask Junius to reconcile these contra- 
dictions, and explain this nonsense, the answer is 
ready : ' He cannot descend to an altercation in the 
newspapers.' He feels no reluctance to attack the 
character of any man : the throne is not too high, nor 
the cottage too low : his mighty malice can grasp 
both extremes. He hints not his accusation as opi- 
nion, conjecture, or inference, but delivers them as 
positive assertions. Do the accused complain of in- 
justice ? He acknowledges they have some sort of 
right to an explanation ; but if they ask for proofs and 
facts, he begs to be excused ; and though he is no 
where else to be encountered, 'he cannot descend to 
an altercation in the newspapers.' 

" And this, perhaps, Junius may think ' the liberal 
resentment of a gentleman;'' this skulking assassina- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 203 

uon he may call courage. In all things, as in this, I 
hope we differ. 



' I thought that fortitude had been a mean. 

* 'Twixt fear and rashness ; not a lust obscene, 
' Or appetite of offending ; but a skill 

4 And nice discernment between good and ill. 
' Her ends are honesty and public good ; 

* And without these she is not understood.' 



" Of two things, however, he has condescended to 
give proof. He very properly produces a young lady 
to prove that 1 am not a man ; and a good old woman, 
my grandmother, to prove Mr. Oliver a fool. Poor 
old soul ! she read her bible far otherwise than Junius ! 
She often found there, that the sins of the fathers had 
been visited on the children ; and therefore was cau- 
tious, that herself, and her immediate descendants, 
should leave no reproach on her posterity : and they 
left none. How little could she foresee this reverse 
of Junius, who visits my political sins upon my grand- 
mother ! I do not charge this to the score of malice 
in him; it proceeded entirely from his propensity to 
blunder ; that whilst he was reproaching me, for in- 
troducing, in the most harmless manner, the name of 
one female, he might himself, at the same instant, in- 
troduce two. 



204 MEMOIRS OF 

" I am represented, alternately, as it suits Junius 
purpose, under the opposite characters of a gloomy 
monk, and a man of politeness and good humour. I 
am called "a solitary monk,'' in order to confirm the 
notion given of me, in Mr. Wilkes' anonymous para- 
graphs, that 1 never laugh. And the terms of polite- 
ness and good humour, on which 1 am said to have 
lived heretofore with the young lady, are intended to 
confirm other paragraphs of Mr. Wilkes, in which he 
is supposed to have offended me by refusing his daugh- 
ter. Ridiculous ! Yet I cannot deny but that Junius 
has proved me unmanly and ungenerous, as clearly 
as he has shown me corrupt and vindictive ; and I 
will tell him more : I have paid the present ministry 
as many visits and compliments as ever I paid to the 
young lady ; and shall all my life treat them with the 
same politeness and good humour. 

"But Junius ' begs me to believe, that he measures 
the integrity of men by their conduct, not by their 
professions.' Sure this Junius must imagine his 
readers as void of understanding as he is of modesty ! 
Where shall we find the standard of his integrity? 
By what are we to measure the conduct of this lurking 
assassin ? And he says this to me, whose conduct. 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 205 

wherever T could personally appear, has been as direct 
and open, and public, as my words. I have not, like 
him, concealed myself in my chamber, to shoot my 
arrows out of the window ; nor contented myself to 
view the battle from afar ; but publicly mixed in the 
engagement, and shared the danger. To whom have 
I, like him, refused my name, upon complaint of 
injury ? What printer have I desired to conceal me ? 
In the infinite variety of business in which 1 have been 
concerned, where it is not so rasy to be faultless, which 
of my actions can he arraign ? To what danger has any 
man been exposed, which I have not faced ? — Informa- 
tion, action, imprisonment, or deaths What labor have I 
refused? What expense have I declined? What pleasure 
have I not renounced ? But Junius, to whom no conduct 
belongs, ' measures the integrity of men by their con- 
duct, not by their professions :' himself, all the while, 
being nothing but professions, and those too anony- 
mous. The political ignorance, or wilful falsehood, 
of this declaimer is extreme. His own former letters 
justify both my conduct and those whom his last letter 
abuses : for the public measures which Junius has 
been all along defending, were ours whom he attacks ; 
and the uniform opposer of those measures has been 
Mr. Wilkes, whose bad actions and intentions he en- 
deavours to screen. 



206 MEMOIRS OF 

" Let Junius now, if he pleases, change his abuse, 
and quiting his loose hold of interest and revenge 9 
accuse me of vanity, and call this defence boasting. 
I own I have pride to see statutes decreed, and the 
highest honors conferred, for measures and actions 
which all men have approved ; whilst those who coun- 
selled and caused them, are execrated and insulted. 
The darkness in which Junius thinks himself shrouded 
has not concealed him ; nor the artifice of only attack- 
ing under that signature those he would pull down, 
whilst he recommends by other ways those he would 
have promoted, disguised from me whose partizan he 
is. When Lord Chatham can forgive the awkward 
situation in which, for the sake of the public, he was 
designedly placed by the thanks to him from the city, 
and when Wilkes' name ceases to be necessary to 
Lord Rockingham, to keep up a clamour against the 
persons of the ministry, without obliging the different 
factions, now in opposition, to bind themselves before- 
hand to some certain points, and to stipulate some 
precise advantages to the public ; then, and not till 
then, may those whom he now abuses expect the ap- 
probation of Junius. The approbation of the public 
for our faithful attention to their interest, by endeavours 
for those stipulations, which have made us as obnox- 
ious to the factions in opposition as to those in admin- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 207 

istration, is not, perhaps, to be expected till some 
years hence ; when the public will look back, and see 
how shamefully they have been deluded, and by what 
arts they were made to lose the golden opportunity 
of preventing what they will surely experience, — a 
change of ministers, without a material change of 
measures, and without any security for a tottering 
constitution. But what cares Junius for the security 
of the constitution ? He has now unfolded to us his 
diabolical principles. As a public man he must ever 
condemn any measure which may tend accidentally to 
gratify the sovereign ; and Mr. Wilkes is to be sup- 
ported and assisted in all his attempts (no matter how 
ridiculous and mischievous his projects) as long as he 
continues to be a thorn in the King's side ! The cause 
of the country, it seems, in the opinion of Junius, is 
merely to vex the King ; and any rascal is to be sup- 
ported in any roguery, provided he can only thereby 
plant a thorn in the King's side. This is the very ex- 
tremity of faction, and the last degree of political 
wickedness. Because Lord Chatham has been ill 
treated by the King, and treacherously betrayed by 
the Duke of Grafton, the latter is to be, ' the pillow 
on which Junius will rest his resentment ;' and the 
public are to oppose the measures of government from 



208 MEMOIRS OF 

mere motives of personal enmity to the sovereign I 
These are the avowed principles of the man who, in 
the same letter, says, ' If ever he should be convinced 
that 1 had no motive but to destroy Wilkes, he shall 
then be ready to do justice to my character, and to 
declare to the world, that he despises me somewhat less 
than he does at present!' Had I ever acted from per- 
sonal affection or enmity to Mr. Wilkes, I should 
justly be despised : but what does he deserve, whose 
avowed motive is personal enmity to the sovereign ? 
The contempt which I should otherwise feel for the 
absurdity and glaring inconsistency of Junius, is here 
swallowed up in my abhorrence of his principles. The 
right divine and sacredness of kings is to me a sense- 
less jargon. It was thought a daring expression of 
Oliver Cromwell, in the time of Charles the I., that, 
if he found himself placed opposite to the king in 
battle, he would discharge his piece into his bosom as 
soon as into any other man's. I go farther : had 1 
lived in those days, I would not have waited for chance 
to give me an opportunity of doing my duty ; I would 
have sought him through the ranks, and, without the 
least personal enmity, have discharged my piece into 
his bosom rather than into any other man's. The 
King, whose actions justify rebellion to his govern- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 209 

ment, deserves death from the hand of every subject. 
And should such a time arrive, I shall be as free to 
act as to say; but, till then, my attachment to the per- 
son and family of the sovereign shall ever be found 
more zealous and sincere than that ot his flatterers. 
I would offend the sovereign with as much reluctance 
as the parent : but if the happiness and security of 
the whole family made it necessary, so far, and no 
farther, I would offend him without remorse. 

" But let us consider a little whither these principles 
of Junius would lead us. Should Mr. Wilkes once 
more commission Mr. Thomas Walpole to procure for 
him a pension of one thousand pounds, upon the Irish 
establishment, for thirty years, he must be supported 
in the demand by the public, because it would mortify 
the King! 

" Should he wish to see Lord Rockingham, and his 
friends, once more in administration, uncloged by any 
stipulations for the people, that he might again enjoy 
a pension of one thousand and forty pounds a-year, 
viz. from the first Lord of the Treasury, 500/., from 
the Lords of the Treasury, 60/. each : from the Lords 
of Trade, 40/. each, &tc. the public must give up their 

27 



MO MEMOIRS OF 

attention to points of national benefit, and assist Mr. 
Wilkes in his attempt, because it would mortify the 
King! 

" Should he demand the government of Canada, or 
of Jamaica, or the embassy to Constantinople, and in 
case of refusal threaten to write them down, as he had 
before served another administration, in a-year and a 
half, he must be supported in his pretensions, and 
upheld in his insolence, because it would mortify the 
King ! 

" Junius may choose to suppose that these things 
cannot happen ! But, that they have happened, not- 
withstanding Mr. Wilkes' denial, I do aver. I main- 
tain, that Mr. Wilkes did commission Mr. Thomas 
Walpole to solicit for him a pension of one thousand 
pounds, on the Irish establishment, for thirty years ; 
with which, and a pardon, he declared he would be 
satisfied : and that, nothwithstanding his letter to 
Mr. Onslow, he did accept a clandestine, precarious, 
and eleemosynary pension from the Rockingham 
administration, which they paid in proportion to, and 
out of their salaries, and so entirely was it ministerial, 
that, as any of them went out of the ministry, their 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 211 

names were scratched out of the list, and they con- 
tributed no longer. I say, he did solicit the govern- 
ments, and the embassy, and threatened their refusal 
nearly in these words : * It cost me a-year and a 
half to write down the last administration ; should 
I employ as much time upon you, very few of you 
would be in at the death.' When these threats did 
not prevail, he came over to England to embarass 
them by his presence : and when he found that Lord 
Rockingham was something firmer, and more manly 
than he expected, and refused to be bullied into what 
he could not perform, Mr. Wilkes declared that he 
could not leave England without money ; and the 
Duke of Portland and Lord Rockingham purchased 
his absence with one hundred pounds a-piece, with 
which he returned to Paris: and for the truth of what 
I here advance, I appeal to the Duke of Portland, to 
Lord Rockingham, to John Lord Cavendish, to Mr. 
Walpole, &.c, I appeal to the handwriting of Mr. 
Wilkes, which is still extant. 

" Should Mr. Wilkes afterwards (failing in this 
wholesale trade) choose to dole out his popularity by 
the pound, and expose the city offices to sale to his 
brother, his attorney, Uc. Junius will tell us, it is only 



212 MEMOIRS Ob 

ambition that he has to make them chamberlain, town- 
clerk, &tc. And he must not be opposed in thus rob- 
bing the ancient citizens of their birthright, because 
any defeat of Mr. Wilkes would gratify the King ! 

" Should he, after consuming the whole of his own 
fortune, and that of his wife, and incurring a debt of 
twenty thousand pounds, merely by his own private 
extravagance, without a single service or exertion, all 
this time for the public, whilst his estate remained ; 
should he, at length, being undone, commence pa- 
triot ; have the good fortune to be illegally persecuted, 
and, in consideration of that illegality, be espoused 
by a kxv gentlemen of the purest public principles ; 
should his debts, though none of them were con- 
tracted for the public, and all his other incumbrances, 
be discharged ; should he be offered 600/. or 1000/. 
a-year to make him independent for the future ; and 
should he, after all, instead of gratitude for these 
services, insolently forbid his benefactors to bestow 
their own money upon any other object but himself, 
and revile them for setting any bounds to their sup- 
plies ; Junius (who, any more than Lord Chatham, 
never contributed one farthing to these enormous ex- 
pences) will tell them, that if they think of converting 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 213 

the supplies of Mr. Wilkes' private extravagance to 
the support of public measures, they are as great fools 
as my grandmother ; and that Mr. Wilkes ought to 
hold the strings of their purses, as long as he continues 
to be a thorn in the King's side ! 

" Upon these principles 1 never have acted, and I 
never will act. In my opinion, it is less dishonorable 
to be the creature of a court, than the tool of a faction. 
I will not be either. I understand the two great lead- 
ers of opposition to be Lord Rockingham and Lord 
Chatham ; under one of whose banners all the op- 
posing members of both Houses, who desire to get 
places, enlist. I can place no confidence in either of 
them, or in any others, unless they will now engage, 
whilst they are out, to grant certain essential advant- 
ages for the security of the public when they shall be 
in administration. These points they refuse to stipu- 
late, because they are fearful lest they should prevent 
any future overtures from the court. To force them 
to these stipulations has been the uniform endeavour 
of Mr. Sawbridge, Mr. Townshend, Mr. Oliver, &ic. 
and therefore they are abused by Junius. I know no 
reason, but my zeal and industry in the same cause, 
that should entitle me to the honor of being ranked 



214 MEMOIRS OF 

by his abuse with persons of their fortune and station. 
It is a duty 1 owe to the memory of the late Mr. 
Beckford, to say, that he had no other aim than this, 
when he provided that sumptuous entertainment at the 
Mansion House, for the members of both Houses in 
opposition. At that time, he drew up the heads of 
an engagement, which he gave to me, with a request 
that I would couch it in terms so cautious and precise, 
as to leave no room for future quibble and evasion ; 
but to oblige them either to fulfil the intent of the 
obligation, or to sign their own infamy, and leave it 
on record ; and this engagement he was determined 
to propose to them at the Mansion House, that either 
by their refusal they might forfeit the confidence of the 
public, or, by the engagement, lay a foundation for 
confidence. 

" When they were informed of the intention, Lord 
Rockingham and his friends flatly refused any engage- 
ment ; and Mr. Beckford as flatly swore, they should 
then ' eat none of his broth ;' and he was determined 
to put off the entertainment ; but Mr. Beckford was 
prevailed upon by to indulge them in the ridi- 
culous parade of a popular procession through the 
city, and to give them the foolish pleasure of an 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 215 

imaginary consequence, for the real benefit only of 
the cooks and purveyors. 

" It was the same motive which dictated the thanks 
of the city to Lord Chatham ; which were expressed 
to be given for his declaration in favor of short par- 
liaments, in order thereby to fix Lord Chatham, at 
least, to that one constitutional remedy, without which 
all others can afford no security. The embarrassment, 
no doubt, was cruel. He had his choice, either to 
offend the Rockingham party, who declared formally 
against short parliaments, and with the assistance of 
whose numbers in both Houses he must expect again 
to be minister, or to give up the confidence of the 
public, from whom, finally, all real consequence must 
proceed. Lord Chatham chose the latter ; and I will 
venture to say, that, by his answer to those thanks, he 
has given up the people without gaining the friend- 
ship or cordial assistance of the Rockingham faction, 
whose little politics are confined to the making of 
matches, and extending their family connections ; and 
who think they gain more by procuring one additional 
vote to their party in the House of Commons, than by 
adding their languid property, and feeble character, 
to the abilities of a Chatham, or the confidence of 
the public. 



216 MEMOIRS OF 

" Whatever may be the event of the present wretch- 
ed state of politics in this country, the principles of 
Junius will suit no form of government. They are 
not to be tolerated under any constitution. Personal 
enmity is a motive fit only for the devil. Whoever, 
or whatever, is sovereign, demands the respect and 
support of the people. The union is formed for their 
happiness, which cannot be had without mutual re- 
spect; and he counsels maliciously who would per? 
suade either to a wanton breach of it. When it is 
banished by either party, and when every method has 
been tried in vain to restore it, there is no remedy but 
a divorce ; but even then he must have a hard and 
wicked heart indeed, who punishes the greatest crimi- 
nal merely for the sake of the punishment ; and who 
does not let fall a tear for every drop of blood that i- 
shed in a public struggle, however just the quarrel. 

" John Horne." 



CHAPTER XL 

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 

August 15, 1771. 
"Sir — I OUGHT to make an apology to the Duke of 
Grafton, for suffering any part of my attention to be 
diverted from his Grace to Mr. Horne. I am not 
justified by the similarity of their dispositions. Private 
vices, however detestable, have not dignity sufficient 
to attract the censure of the press, unless they are 
united with the power of doing some signal mischief 
to the community. Mr. Horne's situation does not 
correspond with his intentions. In my opinion (which 
I know will be attributed to my usual vanity and pre- 
sumption) his letter to me does not deserve an answer. 
But 1 understand, that the public are not satisfied 
with my silence : that an answer is expected from 
me ; and that if I persist in refusing to plead, it will 
be taken for conviction. I should be inconsistent 

2B 



218 MEMOIRS OF 

with the principles I profess, if 1 declined an appeal 
to the good sense of the people, or did not willingly 
submit myself to the judgment of my peers. 

" If any coarse expressions have escaped me, I am 
ready to agree, that they are unfit for Junius to make 
use of; but I see no reason to admit, that they have 
been improperly applied. 

" Mr. HoRNE, it seems, is unable to comprehend how 
an extreme want of conduct and discretion, can consist 
with the abilities I have allowed him ; nor can he 
conceive that a very honest man, with a very good 
understanding, may be deceived by a knave. His 
knowledge of human nature, must be limited indeed. 
Had he never mixed with the world, one would think 
that even his books might have taught him better. 
Did he hear Lord Mansfield, when he defended his 
doctrine concerning libels? Or when he stated the 
law in prosecutions for criminal conversation ? Or 
when he delivered his reasons for calling the House of 
Lords together, to receive a copy of his charge to the 
jury in Woodfall's trial ? Had he been present upon 
any of these occasions, he would have seen how pos- 
sible it is for a man of the first talents to confound 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 219 

himself in absurdities, which would disgrace the lips 
of an idiot. Perhaps the example might have taught 
him not to value his own understanding so highly. 
Lord Lyttleton's integrity and judgment are unques- 
tionable ; yet he is known to admire that cunning 
Scotchman, and verily believes him an honest man. 
1 speak to facts, with which all of us are conversant. 
I speak to men, and to their experience ; and will not 
descend to answer the little sneering sophistries of a 
collegian. Distinguished talents are not necessarily 
connected with discretion. If there be any thing re- 
markable in the character of Mr. Horne, it is, that 
extreme want of judgment should be united with his 
moderate capacity. Yet 1 have not forgotten the 
acknowledgment I made him ; he owes it to my 
bounty ; and though his letter has lowered him in my 
opinion, I scorn to retract the charitable donation. 

" I said it would be very difficult for Mr. Horne to 
write directly in defence of a ministerial measure, and 
not be detected, and even that difficulty I confined to 
his particular situation. He changes the terms of the 
proposition, and supposes me to assert, that it would 
be impossible for any man to write for the newspapers, 
and not be discovered. 



220 JUEMOIR3 OF 

"He repeatedly affirms, or intimates at least, that 
he knows the author ot these letters. With what co- 
lor of truth, then can he pretend, That 1 am no ivhere 
to be encountered, but in a newspaper ? 1 shall leave 
him to his suspicions. It is not necessary, that I 
should confide in the honor or discretion of a man, 
who already seems to hate me with as much rancour, 
as if I had formerly been his friend. But he asserts, 
that he has traced me through a variety of signatures. 
To make the discovery of any importance to his pur- 
pose, he should have proved, either that the fictititous 
character of Junius has not been consistently support- 
ed, or that the author has maintained different prin- 
ciples under different signatures. I cannot recall to 
my memory the numberless trifles I have written ; but 
I rely upon the consciousness of my own integrity, and 
defy him to fix any colorable charge of inconsistency 
upon me. 

"I am not bound to assign the secret motives of his 
apparent hatred of Mr. Wilkes : nor does it follow 
that I may not judge fairly of his conduct, though it 
were true, that I had no conduct of my own. Mr. 
Horne enlarges with rapture upon the importance of 
his services ; the dreadful battles which he might have 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 221 

heen engaged in, and the dangers he has escaped. In 
support of the formidable description, he quotes verses 
without mercy. The gentleman deals in fiction, and 
naturally appeals to the evidence of the poets. — 
Taking him at his word he cannot but admit the 
superiority of Mr. Wilkes in this line of service. On 
one side, we see nothing but imaginary distresses ; 
on the other, we see real prosecutions ; real penalties ; 
real imprisonment ; life repeatedly hazarded ; and, at 
one moment, almost the certainty of death. Thanks 
are undoubtedly due to every man who does his duty 
in the engagement, but it is the wounded soldier who 
deserves the reward. 

"I do not mean to deny that Mr. Horne had been 
an active partizan. It would defeat ray own purpose, 
not to allow him a degree of merit, which aggravates 
his guilt. The very charge of contributing his utmost 
efforts to support a ministerial measure, implies an 
acknowledgment of his former services. If he had not 
once been distinguished, by his apparent zeal in de- 
fence of the common cause, he could not now be dis- 
guised by deserting it. As for myself, it is no longer 
a question, whether I shall mix with the throng, and 
take a single share in the danger. Whenever Junius 



222 MEMOIRS OF 

appears, he must encounter an host of enemies. But 
is there no honorable way to serve the public, without 
engaging in personal quarrels, with insignificant indi- 
viduals, or submitting to the drudgery of canvassing 
votes for an election ? Is there no merit in dedicating 
my life to the information of my fellow subjects? 
What public question have I declined ? What villain 
have 1 spared ? Is there no labour in the composition 
of these letters ? — Mr. HoRNE.', I fear, is partial to me, 
and measures the facility of my writings by the fluency 
of his own. 

" He talks to us in high terms of the gallant feats he 
would have performed if he had lived in the last cen- 
tury. The unhappy Charles could hardly have es- 
caped him. But living Princes have a claim to his 
attachment and respect. Upon these terms there is 
no danger in being a patriot. If he means any thing 
more than a pompous rhapsody, let us try how well 
his argument holds together. I presume he is not yet 
so much a courtier as to affirm, that the constitution 
has not been grossly and daringly violated under the 
present reign. He will not say, that the laws have 
not been shamefully broken or perverted ; that the 
rights of the subject have not been invaded ; or, that 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 223 

redress has not been repeatedly solicited and refused. 
Grievances, like these, were the foundation of the re- 
bellion in the last century ; and, if I understand Mr. 
Horne, they would, at that period, have justified him, 
to his own mind, in deliberately attacking the life of 
his sovereign. I shall not ask him to what political 
constitution this doctrine can be reconciled : but, at 
least it is incumbent upon him to show, that the pre- 
sent King has better excuses than Charles the First, 
for the errors of his government. He ought to de- 
monstrate to us, that the constitution was better un- 
derstood an hundred years ago, than it is at present ; 
that the legal rights of the subject, and the limits of 
the prerogative, were more accurately defined, and 
more clearly comprehended. If propositions, like 
these, cannot be fairly maintained, I do not see how 
he can reconcile it to his conscience, not to act im- 
mediately with the same freedom with which he 
speaks. I reverence the character of Charles the 
First as little as Mr. Horne ; but 1 will not insult 
his misfortunes, by a comparison, that would degrade 
him. 

" It is worth observing, by what gentle degrees the 
furious, persecuting zeal of Mr. Horne has softened 



224 MEMOIRS OF 

into moderation. Men and measures were yesterday 
his object. What pains did he once take to bring that 
great state criminal M'Quirk, to execution ? To-day 
he confines himself to measures only : no penal exam- 
ple is to be left to the successors of the Duke of Graf- 
ton. To-morrow, I presume, both men and measures 
will be forgiven. The flaming patriot, who so lately 
scorched us in the meridian, shines temperately to the 
west, and is hardly felt as he descends. 

" I comprehend the policy of endeavouring to com- 
municate to Mr. Oliver and Mr. Sawbridge, a share 
in the reproaches with which he supposes me to have 
loaded him. My memory fails me, if I have mentioned 
their names with disrespect ; unless it be reproachful 
to acknowledge a sincere respect for the character of 
Mr. Sawbridge, and not to have questioned the inno- 
cence of Mr. Oliver's intentions. 

" It seems I am a partizan of the great leader of 
the opposition. If the charge had been a reproach, 
it should have been better supported. I did not in- 
tend to make a public declaration of the respect 1 
bear Lord Chatham ; I well knew that unworthy con- 
elusions would be drawn from it. But 1 am called 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 225 

• 
upon to deliver my opinion ; and surely it is not in the 

little censure of Mr. Horne to deter me from doing 
signal justice to a man, who, I confess, has grown 
upon my esteem. As for the common sordid views of 
avarice, or any purpose of vulgar ambition, I question 
whether the applause of Junius would be of service to 
Lord Chatham. My vote will hardly recommend him 
to an increase of his pension, or to a seat in the cabi- 
net. But, if his ambition be upon a level with his 
understanding, if he judges of what is truly honorable 
for himself, with the same superior genius which ani- 
mates and directs him to eloquence in debate, to 
wisdom in decision, even the pen of Junius shall con- 
tribute to reward him. Recorded honors shall gather 
round his monument, and thicken over him. It is a 
solid fabric, and will support the laurels that adorn it. 
I am not conversant in the language of panegyric. 
These praises are extorted from me ; but they will 
wear well, for they have been dearly earned. 

" My detestation of the Duke of Grafton is not 
founded upon his treachery to any individual ; though 
I am willing enough to suppose, that, in public affair?. 
it would be impossible to desert or betray Lord Chat- 
ham, without doing an essential injury to this country. 

29 



220 MEMOIRS OF 

My abhorrence to the Duke arises from an intimate 
knowledge of his character ; and from a thorough 
conviction that his baseness has been the cause of 
greater mischief to England, than even the unfortu- 
nate ambition of Lord Bute. 

" The shortening the duration of Parliaments is a 
subject on which Mr. Horne cannot enlarge too 
warmly, nor will I question his sincerity. If I did not 
profess the same sentiments, I should be shamefully 
inconsistent with myself. It is unnecessary to bind 
Lord Chatham by the written formality of an engage- 
ment. He has publicly declared himself a convert to 
triennial Parliaments ; and though I have long been 
convinced, that this is the only possible resourse we 
have left to preserve the substantial freedom of the 
constitution, I do not think we have a right to deter- 
mine against the integrity of Lord Rockingham or 
his friends. Other measures may undoubtedly be 
supported in argument, as better adapted to the dis- 
order, or more likely to be obtained. 

" Mr. Horne is well assured, that I never was the 
champion of Mr. Wilkes. But though I am not 
obliged to answer for the firmness of his future adher- 



JOHN IIORNE TOOKE. 227 

ence to the principles he professes, I have no reason 
to presume, that he will hereafter disgrace thenir As 
for all those imaginary cases which Mr. Horne so 
petulantly urges against me, I have one plain honest 
answer to make to him. Whenever Mr. Wilkes shall 
be convicted of soliciting a pension, an embassy, or a 
government, he must depart from that situation, and 
renounce that character, which he assumes at present, 
and which, in my opinion, entitles him to the support 
of the public. By the same act, and at the same 
moment, he will forfeit his power of mortifying the 
King ; and though he can never be a favorite at St. 
James', his baseness may administer a solid satisfac- 
tion to the royal mind. The man I speak of, has not 
a heart to feel for the frailties of his fellow-creatures. 
It is their virtues that afflict, it is their vices that con- 
sole him. 

" 1 give every possible advantage to Mr. Horne, 
when I take the facts he refers to for granted. That 
they are the produce of his invention, seems highly 
probable ; that they are exaggerated, 1 have no doubt. 
At the worst, what do they amount to ? but that Mr. 
Wilkes, who never was thought of as a perfect pattern 
of morality, has not been at all times proof against 



228 MEMOIRS OP 

the extremity of distress. How shameful is it, in a 
man who iias lived in friendship with him, to reproach 
him with failings too naturally connected with des- 
pair ? Is no allowance to be made for banishment 
and ruin ? Does a two years imprisonment make no 
atonement for his crimes ? The resentment of a priest rs 
implacable : no sufferings can soften, no penitence can 
appease him. Yet he himself, I think, upon his own 
system, has a multitude of political offences to atone 
for. I will not insist upon the nauseous detail with 
which he has so long disgusted the public: he seems 
to be ashamed of it. But what excuse will he make 
to the friends of the constitution, for laboring to pro- 
mote this consummately bad man to a station of the 
highest national trust and importance ! Upon what 
honorable motives did he recommend him to the livery 
of London for their representative ? To the ward of 
Farringdon for their alderman? To the county of Mid- 
dlesex for their knight ? Will he affirm, that, at that 
time, he was ignorant of Mr. Wilkes' solicitations to 
the ministry? That he should say so, is, indeed, very 
necessary for his own justification ; but where will he 
find credulity to believe him ? 



'In what school this gentleman learned his ethic- 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 229 

I know not. His logic seems to have been studied 
under Mr. Dyson. That miserable pamphleteer, by 
dividing the only precedent in point, and taking as 
much of it as suited his purpose, had reduced his 
argument upon the Middlesex election to something 
like the shape of a syllogism. Mr. Horne has con- 
ducted himself with the same ingenuity and candor. 
I had affirmed, that Mr. Wilkes would preserve the 
public favor, ' as long as he stood forth against a 
ministry and parliament, who were doing every thing 
they could to enslave the country, and as long as he 
was a thorn in the King's side. Yet, from the exult- 
ing triumph of Mr. Horne's reply, one would think 
that I had rested my expectation, that Mr. Wilkes 
would be supported by the public upon the single 
condition of his mortifying the King. This may be 
logic at Cambridge, or at the treasury ; but among 
men of sense and honor, it is folly or villany in the 
extreme. 

" I see the pitiful advantage he has taken of a 
single unguarded expression, in a letter not intended 
for the public. Yet it is only the expression that is 
unguarded. I adhere to the true meaning of that 
member of the sentence, taken separately as he takes 



230 MEMOIRS OP 

it j and now, upon the coolest deliberation, re-assert, 
that, for the purposes 1 referred to, it may be highly 
meritorious to the public, to wound the personal feel- 
ings of the sovereign. It is not a general proposition, 
nor is it generally applied to the Chief Magistrate of 
this, or any other constitution. Mr. Horne knows, 
as well as I do, that the best of Princes is not displeas- 
ed with the abuse which he sees thrown upon his os- 
tensible ministers. It makes them, I persume, more 
properly the objects of his royal compassion. Neither 
does it escape his sagacity, that the lower they are 
degraded in the public esteem, the more submissively 
they must depend upon his favor for protection. This 
I affirm, upon the most solemn conviction, and the 
most certain knowledge, is a leading maxim in the 
policy of the closet. It is unnecessary to pursue the 
argument any farther. 

" Mr. Horne is now a very loyal subject. He 
laments the wretched state of politics in this country ; 
and sees, in a new light, the weakness and folly of the 
opposition. Whoever, or whatever, is sovereign, de- 
mands the resyect and support of the people : it was 
not so when Nero fiddled while Rome tvas burning. 
Our gracious sovereign has had wonderful success in 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 231 

•creating new attachments to his ptrson and family. 
He owes it, I presume, to the regular system he has 
pursued in the mystery of conversion. He began 
with an experiment upon the Scotch, and concludes 
with converting Mr. Horne. What a pity it is, that 
the Jews should be condemned by Providence to wait 
for a Messiah of their own. 

"The priesthood are accused of misinterpreting the 
Scriptures. Mr. Horne has improved upon his pro- 
fession. He alters the text, and creates a refutable 
doctrine of his own. Such artifices cannot long de- 
lude the understandings of the people ; and, without 
meaning an indecent comparison, I may venture to 
foretel, that the Bible and Junius will be read, whei* 
the commentaries of the Jesuits are forgotten. 

« JUNIUS." 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 

August 2Q, 1771. 
" Sir — The enemies of the people, having now 
nothing better to object to my friend Junius, are at last 



2&J MEMOIRS Ol 

obliged to quit his politics, and to rail at him for crimes 
he is not guilty of. His vanity and impiety are now 
the perpetual topics of their abuse. I do not mean to 
lessen the force of such charges, supposing they were 
true, but to show that they are not founded. If 1 ad- 
mitted the premises, I should readily agree in all the 
consequences drawn from them. Vanity, indeed, is a 
venal error ; for it usually carries its own punishment 
with it ; but if I thought Junius capable of uttering a 
disrespectful word of the religion of his country, I 
should be the first to renounce and give him up to the 
public contempt and indignation. As a man, I am 
satisfied that he is a christian, upon the most sincere 
conviction : as a writer, he would be grossly inconsis- 
tent with his political principles, if he dared to attack 
a religion, established by those laws, which it seems 
to be the purpose of his life to defend. Now for the 
proofs. Junius is accused of an impious allusion to 
the holy sacrament, where he says, that, if Lord 
Weymouth be denied the cup, there would be no keep- 
ing him ivithin the pale of the Ministry. Now, Sir, I 
affirm, that this passage refers entirely to a ceremonial 
in the Roman Catholic church, which denies the cup 
to the laity. It has no manner of relation to the 
Protestant creed ; and is, in this country, as fair an 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 235 

object of ridicule as transubstantiation, or any other 
jpart of Lord Peter's History, in the Tale of the Tub. 

" But Junius is charged with equal vanity and im- 
piety, in comparing his writings to the Holy Scripture. 
The formal protest he makes against any such com- 
parison avails him nothing. It becomes necessary 
then to show, that the charge destroys itself. If he be 
vain, he cannot be impious. 

" A vain man does not usually compare himself 
to an object which it is his design to undervalue. 
On the other hand, if he be impious, he cannot be vain, 
for his impiety, if any, must consist in his endeavour- 
ing to degrade the Holy Scriptures, by a comparison 
with his own contemptible writings. This would be 
folly, indeed, of the grossest nature : but where lies 
the vanity ? I shall now be told, ' Sir, what you say 
is plausible enough : but still you must allow, that it 
is shamefully impudent in Junius to tell us that his 
works will live as long as the Bible.' My answer is, 
agreed ; Jut first prove that he has said so. Look at 
his words, and you will find that the utmost he expects 
is, tha; the Bible and Junius will survive the commen- 
taries of the Jesuits ; which may prove true in a fort- 

30 



23^ MEMOIRS OF 

night. The most malignant sagacity cannot show- 
that his works are, in his opinion, to live as long as 
the Bible. Suppose 1 were to foretell, that Jack and 
Tom would survive Harry, does it follow that Jack 
must live as long as Tom ? I would only illustrate my 
meaning, and protest against the least idea of pro-* 
faneness. 

" Yet this is the way in which Junius is usually an- 
swered, arraigned and convicted. These candid critics 
never remember any thing he says in honor of our 
holy religion; though it is true, that one of his lead- 
ing arguments is made to rest upon the internal evi- 
dence, which the purest of all religions carries with it. 
I quote his words ; and conclude from them, that he 
is a true and hearty Christian, in substance, not in 
ceremony ; though possibly he may not agree with my 
Reverend Lords the Bishops, or with the head of the 
Church, that prayers are morality, or that kneeling is 
religion. 

"Philo Junius." 



CHAPTER XII. 

FROM THE REVEREND MR. HORNE TO JUNIUS. 

August 17, 1771. 
" I congratulate you, Sir, on the recovery of 
your wonted style, though it has cost you a fortnight. 
I compassionate your labor in the composition of your 
letters, and will communicate to you the secret of my 
fluency. Truth needs no ornament ; and, in my opi- 
nion, what she borrows of the pencil is deformity. 

" You brought a positive charge against me of cor- 
ruption. I denied the charge, and called for your 
proofs. You replied with abuse, and re-asserted your 
charge. 1 called again for proofs. You reply again 
with abuse only, and drop your accusation. In your 
fortnight's letter, there is not one word upon the sub' 
ject of my corruption. 



236* MEMOIRS OF 

" I have no more to say, but to return thanks to 
you for your condescension, and to a grateful public, 
and honest ministry, for all the favors they have con- 
ferred upon me. The two latter, I am sure, will never 
refuse me any grace I shall solicit : and since you have 
been pleased to acknowledge, that you told a deliber- 
ate lie in my favor, out of bounty, and as a charitable 
donation, why may I not expect that you will here- 
after (if you do not forget you ever mentioned my 
name with disrespect) make the same acknowledge- 
ment for what you have said to my prejudice ? The 
second recantation will, perhaps, be more abhorrent 
from your disposition ; but should you decline it, you 
will only afford one more instance, how much easier it 
is to be generous than just, and that men are some- 
times bountiful who are not honest. 

" At all events, I am as well satisfied with panegyric 
as Lord Chatham can be. Monument I shall have 
none ; but over my grave it will be said, in your own 
words, * Horne's situation did not correspond with, 
his intentions.'* 

" John Horne." 



JOHN HORNE TOOKE. 237 

WHOEVER, carefully and impartially, peruses 
the foregoing correspondence, and the facts contained 
in this work, must acknowledge, that the Rev. John 
Horne, in his Farce, Comedy and Tragedy, performed 
the Dramatis Persona of Junius, Philo Junius, and 
John Horne, and having placed the last fay stone of 
the arch, walked off the stage, the hero of his own 
DRAMA, leaving a fame in the republic of letters, that 
can never die. 

I shall now close this essay, by quoting the follow- 
ing extract from Mr. Burke's speech, which has been 
furnished me, by my honorable and respected friend, 
R. Riker, Recorder of the City of New-York ; that 
gentleman having obtained it from a manuscript pre- 
served by the late Dr. Johnson, President of Colum- 
bia College, &c. ; who, it is believed, heard Mr. 
Burke deliver it in the House of Commons. 

"It has been confidently reported, that I am the 
author, who has written against government, under 
the signature of ' Junius ;' I have been charged with 
it, in this public assembly, and in private company ; 
I have borne the imputation in my hours of business, 



238 MEMOIRS OF 

and it has attended me in the moments of retirement 
and leisure. Was I conscious, that I merited the im- 
putation, my vanity would not permit me to disown 
it. Could I do it with truth, my passion for glory 
would induce me to boast of being the author of a 
production, so justly celebrated for its accuracy of 
language, its sublimity of sentiment, its poignancy of 
satire, and its exquisite elegance of expression. ' Junius' 
has travelled a road, that has hitherto been but little 
trodden : his undertaking was bold, was arduous ; but 
aided by the superiority of his genius, he has soared 
superior to the difficulties of the attempt. He has 
watched the motions of your nobles and your leaders, 
unsuspecting of danger. Like yEneas under the 
close covert of the rock, singling out the choicest of 
the herd feeding before him. So Junius, under the 
impenetrable veil of secrecy, has watched the motions 
of your nobles and your leaders, rioting in luxury, 
unsuspicious of detection, and unguarded to danger, 
he levelled his arrows, feathered with truth, and 
pointed with the keenest edge of satire, and they 
have fallen prostrate at his feet. Nay !. he has aimed 
a shaft at the Bird of Jove himself, hovering in his 
aerial ivanderings — it smote him — his pinions trembled, 
and he seemed to fall." 



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